Hitchhiking with slaughterhouse workers.

I was sitting on a train on my way from nowhere to somewhere, when I realized that I was immensely sad.

I watched as the city went by. And I had tears in my eyes.

"Why the hell am I so fucking sad?"

Well, I have literally billions of reasons to be sad. Apart from certain souls and certain corners, this world consists of things that I find violent, heartless and unjust. The vast majority are suffering, for nothing.

I sat on that train, and how many other people sitting on that same train would have agreed if I'd stood up and said that a pig is morally comparable to a little child? How many would have agreed if I'd said that animals need rights – and not just the cute mammals and birdies, but also the ugly and mysterious ones; that even fish need rights?

How many people on that train would have agreed? Maybe somebody. Maybe 3.

This is the reality today.

I have billions of reasons to be sad.

And I'm choosing not to be sad.

I'm choosing to look at it this way: Okay, the world is still far, far from what it should be. Things haven't changed yet. But they tend to change. They will change, and I'll just have to wait. I'll do what I can do, but I won't change everything, not by myself; all I can do is all I can do, and it's okay to breathe. It's okay to wander. It's okay to hitchhike. It's okay to laugh. It's okay to sleep and spend days doing absolutely nothing.

The thing is: if I had to go back in time and continue my life in a time where slavery was still the norm and widely accepted – would I spend all my time crying over the fact that I'd have to exist in a time that came before the abolition of slavery? No, because I'd know that it's all temporary. It'll stop. The good guys will win.

The darkness is still in the room. Yes. But eventually, the light is winning. Don't be sad.

Would I refuse to communicate with the people around me? Would I refuse to talk to anyone else because they'd fail to see anything fucked up with slavery? No. I'd understand that the people around me are products of their times. They are not bad. They are not evil. They are simply human, and this is how humanity functions.

So, why wouldn't I look at the people around me now the same way I'd look at the people of the past?

I'd achieve nothing by refusing to communicate with the rest of the world. I'd achieve nothing by deciding to avoid everything I want to do and everywhere I want to go, just because there's always the constant danger that I'll run into people that are contributing to the dark sides of this world.

So, I'm choosing... love. I'm choosing it over hate and fear. Yeah, I'll run into people that I won't be able to understand, and I'll run into people that won't be able to understand me. And I'm going to be able to smile with them.

So, if one of these nights I'm hitchhiking and end up in the same car with a slaughterhouse worker... or a bunch of people on their way to go catch and release fishing... I'll try to laugh with them. I'll try to smile. I'll try to be kind. I'll try to remember that it's all temporary. It'll stop. The good guys will win.

And even the bad guys... they're so full of light. The people around you are products of their times. They don't necessarily understand what they're doing. Future generations would probably understand you significantly better, but for now, you can do your best to see the good sides of the bad guys. The bad guys are not evil. Most of them care. And they write such beautiful songs, tell such beautiful stories, make such wonderful friends.

Vegan bakery table in Beijing.

Humans are abusing other animals pretty much everywhere, so to avoid certain places in order to save myself from seeing things that I don't want to see wouldn't make much sense. Besides: things are slowly getting better everywhere. Meat consumption is on the rise, but so is concern for animal rights. For example: people usually like to think that the animal rights situation in China is a nightmare, when in fact, animal welfare issues are getting more and more coverage in Chinese press and social media, and more and more young people in the big cities are going vegan. There are about 50 million Chinese vegetarians in the world. Funny, isn't it.

Actually, in terms of animal rights, Japan seems to be a LOT worse than China. For some reason, in Japan, people simply aren't grasping the idea of animal rights at all. There's fish in everything, and vegetarianism, let alone veganism, is terrifyingly rare. They don't even know what it means. But this doesn't mean anything yet. Japanese people tend to love animals (like people in general do) and I think it's only a matter of time before the animal rights movement reaches Japan. (Cultured fish could help start a revolution.) The point is: things are bad everywhere, and there's lots of hope everywhere.

I was born into the world at this particular point of progress. Refusing to accept this reality would not help anyone, save anyone. It would only hurt me. Quite soon, cultured animal products will become a part of this reality and that'll make activism two hundred times easier (once we just overcome the boring 'yuck' factor). But until then... I want the beacon, not the bacon.