Nature is not kind, never has been. The natural world and is essentially a vicious, violent place with pockets of contentment tucked here and there for those that live in it.
Life is death and death is life, and like it or not we are a part of the natural world. We as humans have evolved (supposedly) beyond rending prey alive and eating it warm and kicking, but for life to continue something has to die.
And in my view death is not a horrible thing in and of itself. The MANNER of death is important, and even more important is the life that precedes it. A minimum of physical and mental pain (I include fear in this) and a swift and preferably painless death is the best that can be achieved in this current world.
Frankly, a death by swift killing can be seen as a much kinder thing in the end than a ‘natural’ death from old age. When the body’s systems break down and cease to function correctly the end result can be very, very unpleasant. People and much-loved pets have the advantage of medical treatment and palliative care that can make things a bit better. We can euthanize pets (and occasionally people who want that) to end the pain, but other animals and -and too many humans, really- don’t have that option. Death then is a long not-happy thing. Pain, fear, exhaustion, thirst, temperature extremes … Not pretty.
Making lives better, IMO, is more important than avoiding killing.
There you go. I gave the ugly wakeup call in harsh terms, @Colibri gave the biological reality and the excellent posts by @ParallelLines & @saje round out the moral / ethical desiderata within the bloody arena we are all stuck in.
Further, as @nelliebly says, I hope your comment about not wanting to live in a world with death-to-live as a feature was hyperbole. You may well prefer that the world was not so. But since it is so, the solution you seem to propose is … unwise. And further does nothing to improve that world. It amounts to clamping one’s eyes shut and pretending. After your passing the world will move bloodily along undisturbed by your extravagant gesture made at great cost to yourself.
These are very deep topics and the one thing that can safely be said is that there are no easy absolutist answers that are also correct. Growing into seeing the complexities of almost any question worth asking followed by growing into understanding the complexities of the range of answers is arguably what humans are for.
It’s certainly the unique province of humans among all the life on this planet. Lousy though we mostly may be at doing it.
Isn’t that exactly the Jain credo? The principle is to minimize killing and injury. They consider consuming seeds, grains, etc. to cause less (but not no!) destruction of life than digging up a potato. Fruit considered to carry too much promise of life (loads of seeds) may indeed be avoided. They take this philosophy seriously (ever try to invite a strict Jain to eat out in a restaurant? I have) which is why I suggested you look into it if minimizing destruction is important to you.
Al Capp invented the Shmoo, the ideal solution to the moral dilemma of having to kill to eat. Unfortunately, Shmoos inevitably cause the collapse of civilization.
On a similar note, I have suggested to vegans that rather than avoiding honey, they ought to avoid almonds. You can buy a local artisanal honey, and the bees who produced that are essentially pampered pets. They are also free to abandon the beekeeper if they decide they don’t like the conditions. It’s as close to guilt-free as most any food. But the bees who are shipped to the desert of California to pollinate the almond crop actually are enslaved in some meaningful sense (I mean, if you think words like “slavery” and “abuse” can apply to insects) and quite a lot of hives die every year from the stress.
The almond industry in California is obscene in other ways. The dollar value of the water poured on the crop is less than the value of the almonds produced. This in a state that’s (absent imported water) mostly a desert.
How is this possible? They have the political power to get water for almost free. Unlike the other citizens of California.
Reminds me of Kirlian photography and the supposedly bad auras of cut plants.
Good one.
Years ago in the Midwest I had a lot of trees around my house. Which during the non-frozen parts of the years were always full of songbirds tweeting & cheeping and all the rest. It was a pretty happy noise.
Having lunch on the patio one day my wife idly asked “I wonder what they’re all saying?” Being the wit I am I blurted out “They’re all complaining that their feet hurt. Ouch Bob, this bark is sharp! Oww Sally, I’ve got a hang-claw! We should all fly away; I’m tired of standing here on my aching feet!”
Anyhow, that became an in-joke we chuckled about for years. But somehow at the same time it partly ruined the magic of birdsong. It’s all in how you think of it.
Good thing the trees don’t scream all the time. They wouldn’t be nearly as much our friends.
I hate to break it to you, but when male birds are singing they are saying “Get out of here or I’ll beat the snot out of you!” to other males, and “Hey, bay-bee!” to females.
I didn’t say my joke was very good. Just that it sorta took the romance off hearing birdsong thereafter.
As you say, for darn near any critter unless it’s a warning cry about a predator it’s almost always about sex. Either the sex you want to have or the sex you want to prevent others having.
And for folks who missed the learned @Colibri’s sly allusion:
