Recommended: Sea World and the Circus?!?!?!?!

It's only been in recent years where I have become more aware of 'life things' so to speak. I feel many of us (I know I was) were and are very sheltered as children from some of the not so nice things in this world. As good as our elders intentions probably are, I can't help but feel that this leads to us believing in a distortion of the truth. We trust these people and have faith in what they say and so we do not always question the things they tell us. This often means that we can go many years doing things that some may consider unfair, unkind or unethical without knowing it could even be an issue. I certainly do not resent my parents for trying to 'protect' me from these evil truths. But ignorance does not make them any less true, nor any less evil. 

I now understand where my meat and dairy meals came from and I learnt to associate the process of slaughter and loss of life with certain foods I was eating. This led me to make the choice to stop doing this. This learning process spanned many years… many years I wish I had spend already practising the vegan lifestyle. Although I cannot dwell on the past, I do wish I had been made aware of the truth as soon as I was able to comprehend, perhaps not fully, but introduce it as a concept and a process, like all the other things I was slowly taught. The only reason I can logically see for these ethically questionable truths being avoided whilst I grew up is the shame of those who knew and the ignorance of those who did not. It is very easy to be ignorant in modern society because we are so far detached from the process and the 'behind the scenes' of these industries. 

The point of this post however, is that in my journey of discovery that lead me to veganism, I have seen and learnt some incredible things… most of them incredibly horrific. Until I became vegan actually, I did not really watch anything particularly graphic because I am very sensitive and found it too distressing, now I understand this may have been guilt, too. I know people are often averted to these sorts of images, but we must stop and think, these images are only available because they have come from the slaughter houses, farms, zoo's, circuses etc and that is the truths they convey. People exposing these images I am sure would prefer there to be no images to show at all, but it can't be hidden away anymore and we can't turn away simply because it us unpleasant and distressing to see. It is a double standard we must confront and overcome. 

I would like to share with you a couple of documentaries that I found inspiring, informative, evocative and capable of making a difference. 

Blackfish and Earthlings…  Both hard to watch? Yes. Necessary to see? Yes, I do believe. 

I shall be filming a slightly more in-depth review of both these docu-films and popping that on Youtube … visit my channel here. 

In the meantime here are IMDB reviews and links to the films themselves…

• Earthlings (Imdb)
• Blackfish (Imdb)
• Blackfish is available on Netflix
• Earthlings can be found on Youtube (but I don't know if this is actually legal, is it?!)
• Blackfish available to buy on Amazon
• Earthlings website

Please, please take some time to watch them… so we can at least make informed decisions and hopefully spread awareness so that we can free, save and protect as many animals as possible.

Thank you and please do watch the Youtube video, too 

Peace out, Unicorns

Emily xxxxxxxx

What might you find here?

Hi.
My name is Emily Rose Joyce Crosby.
I am a studying actress in my third year of university doing a degree entitled: Professional Studies (Performing Arts).
It's pretty cool. It's basically training me to become a freelance, self employed individual within the creative industry.
I have a lot of free reign over the content of my course this year and I am moving towards a much clearer vision of what kind of career I want to develop.
I am vegan, relatively new, just over a year in and it has been super enlightening.
I have been diagnosed with depression and bulimia and we (doctors and I) are still figuring out the rest.
My personal choices, beliefs and experiences impact heavily upon my creative choices and the subject matter of most of the performance work I want to do centers around the ideas of mental health and ethical issues, predominantly animal rights.

I've (kind of reluctantly) gotten rid of all the previous content from this blog and am wiping the slate clean so to speak. This blog space has now found itself being the focal place where I shall spill my guts about everything to do with what I want to do... which at the moment looks to be ...

Ethical campaigning through the medium of performance art.

Hopefully this place may become a useful resource to some, containing:
- Quotes and references
- Reviews/recommendations (I like films - weird disturbing shit mostly)
- Advice? Possibly? May take the form of moaning...
- This is my place to set myself goals, to track my progression and development as an individual as well as a professional so it is likely my personal experiences will find their way into this too. I have found that, despite the whole requirement for actors to 'leave their problems at the door', it's kinda' easier said than done - so yahhhhh

I'll leave ya with this [look down] as I am currently hiding in the corner of a pub reading (Art and Agenda - Political Art and Activism by noone apparently, so that will be great when I need to reference this) and doing uni work. Just found the quote below and am gonna buy the book (when I get paid, oh wahhh, woe be me).


“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, The Basis of Morality


Peace
Emily