Imagine that you live in a world without cruelty to animals and people. Imagine further that the half of your heart given to your family and friends is full up with love, and the other half is full up with empathy for animals and people. Now come out of the dream into the imperfect world, where you know that vile acts go on - animals and people put in pain or robbed of their lives. This wrings the half of your heart where you feel for them, and the sadness seeps across and suppresses the other half’s capacity to love family and friends. Dmitri Shostakovich is definite on the point:
I dedicated Lady Macbeth to my bride, my future wife, so naturally the opera is about love too, but not only love. It’s also about how love could have been if the world weren’t full of vile things. It’s the vileness that ruins love. (Quoted from The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 274.)
When will lawmakers, politicians, economists, and religious leaders realize that the wringing of what seems like the minor part of the heart wrings the major part? Eliminate cruelty to animals and people from the world, and that will be a great plus not only for them. It will enable fuller love of family and friends.
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For a brief biography of Dmitri Shostakovich, click here.
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