I am someone who has seen a lot of situations in my lifetime and always thought of myself as an open-minded individual – it wasn't until I had my eyes opened to how this world is run by this very black industry that I truly knew my eyes weren't open enough. Being an artist and knowing this ticking time bomb behind the scenes I aimed to create new ways to expose this darkness and bring it to light and shut it down. Now at first you get excited with new passionate energy that you just want to share the information with anyone and everyone and you feel they would love to know! However they are still locked into this matrix that has taken decades to mask the public and they are not interested in listening to what you are “Telling” them. This is where I had to re-evaluate how to approach the situation and manufacture the change I wanted to create. Energy of passion just filled me with a lot of thinking of scenarios to have the ignorant listen to the truth – replaying them constantly to see if they would work so people would just understand. I started to watch many groups, organizations, and experienced individuals on how they were putting out their efforts for change. I connected myself with many organizations from local to international so I can always be involved in their operations and be on top of the most recent action. I realized I am not just a local thinker, as I wanted global changes. I felt that acting locally was great to see quick results but thinking globally would create a ripple of international changes as well; and allowing me to compile everything that was happening to have an overall opinion for myself and how to best direct my attention on what I felt could help create change. I have learned over the years that change is hard in one's life but always for the best. On the streets interacting with the public I was able to watch many different tactics amongst the activists. The overall look is to hold signs that have some great statements, facts, and images – however the differences were how each individual acted to the public to create change. I would watch the way the individual activists would interact and how the public would accept or block the message. Some would come into conversations explaining the reason for the messages, while others would lash out yelling for change to the public. Studying these actions, body languages and emotions on both sides, I felt some connections from my own lifetime experiences of how I would react if I were in the passersby's shoes absorbing the messages from each scenario. These observations allowed me to continually re-evaluate my scenarios for change. The one thing I do not like in my life are walls. Imaginary walls pop up within everyone when they feel threatened and this blocks and shuts down natural absorption of information. Now when someone would come up to me and yell at me its only natural to put up this imaginary wall. So, when an emotional activists lashes out to the public you can almost see the public growing walls and not allowing the much-needed message to be taken in and it becomes wasted energy on the activist's part. Now I agree there is a time and place to use this tactic and that would be more in a protest action when the focus is a business/investor/government but not when it's the general public who you want to become aware of why you're asking for change. So your focus needs to be thought out prior to your action so you can best utilize your energy for maximum results. Then I decided that my actions for an outreach with the public would be to take a different approach to the rest. I decided that I would not use the “Animal Cruelty” factor since many people like to put their nose up to that and it's a known awareness. I also decided not to lash out with facts of why they “Have” to change since this was more of a demand and would create an imaginary wall between us. I thought the best way to create maximum absorption was to first speak about “Why I Am Standing There” and use the best information that the individual I am speaking with would relate to. In the past I have used the government allowing the corporations to genetically alter organisms (GMO) and push it onto the public without their consent, the use of hormones and antibiotics in the animals that end up in their children. Now these are just examples that can get the ball rolling and start a conversation while allowing you to introduce more detailed facts since you have the individual comfortable with conversing. This tactic works well with an angry individual to an interested party and the results are the same and positive. The majority of the population is looked upon as sheep or followers while a lion would be a leader. To create change and educate a lamb to a lion is not always the easiest thing to do given our population takes the path of least resistance and would rather not know the truth. In a business oriented society I believe the activists needs to treat their actions as if it were a business and figure how they can create the best profit/awareness out of every situation. So prior to doing any actions they would need to understand their audience, figure out their focus and direction and then attack the situation accordingly! We need to make lions and we must do it creatively while continuing to evolve with our thinking to be one step ahead of the crowd constantly. ** Bob Timmons is a Canada-based animal activist and proponent of animal rights throughout the world. BM
