kae3g 9978v: Conversation with Dante — On Private Equity and the Vegan Soul

Timestamp: 12025-10-06–rhizome-valley
Series: Technical Writings (Vegan Autodidact Variant)
Category: Socratic Dialogue, Veganic Philosophy, Economic Ethics
Reading Time: 30 minutes
Format: Dramatic dialogue with Dante's European wisdom

"In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself in a dark wood where the straight way was lost." — Dante Alighieri

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." — Gospel According to Jesus

"All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. See yourself in others." — The Buddha

For Guardian Garden PBC and the Vegan Movement: Sometimes the soul's clarity matters more than the portfolio's promise. And in that clarity, there is joy—the deep joy of walking aligned with love.

The Meeting (A Blessing Before We Begin)

Before we meet Dante, let us pause. Take a breath. Feel gratitude for this moment—that you are troubled enough to seek wisdom, that your soul speaks loudly enough to be heard, that the animals have touched your heart so deeply you cannot ignore their suffering.

This is grace. This very troubling is a gift. Many people never feel it. They profit from violence and sleep soundly. That you cannot sleep soundly while contemplating private equity means your soul is alive, your heart is open, your conscience is intact.

Blessed be this troubling. It is the beginning of wisdom.

Now, let us meet him.

I found him sitting beneath an oak tree on the edge of a veganic farm in Tuscany, or perhaps it was Vermont—the distinction seemed to matter less than I expected. He was neither young nor old, dressed simply in clothes that could have been from any century, watching a group of pigs root contentedly in the shade.

"Sit," he said without looking at me. "You have the air of someone who has walked far to ask a question they already know the answer to."

I sat.

"I've been offered something," I began. "Private equity. Coastal cities. Enough money to—"

"To save the animals?" He turned to me then, and his eyes were both kind and piercing. "You think you will make millions and then deploy them for their liberation?"

"Yes. Or... I thought so. But I'm troubled."

"As you should be." He gestured toward the pigs. "Do you see them?"

"Of course."

"No. Do you see them? They are not your salvation project. They are not the recipients of your future charity. They are beings who root and sun themselves and desire nothing from you except that you not harm them. Your question is not whether you can save them with money earned in private equity. Your question is whether you can remain you—the person who sees them as they are—while you earn that money."

I was quiet.

"Tell me what private equity does," he said. "Not the polished story. The truth."

On What Private Equity Is

"They acquire companies," I said. "Restructure them. Make them more efficient. Sell them for profit."

"And in this efficiency, what happens to the workers?"

"Often... they lose their jobs. Or their wages are cut. Hours increased."

"And the communities?"

"Facilities close. Factories move. Tax revenues decline."

"And the animals?" His voice was gentle but unyielding. "When private equity acquires a food company, what happens to the animals?"

I looked away. "Supply chains optimize for cost. Which usually means cheaper animal products. More intensive farming. Longer supply chains to wherever exploitation is cheapest."

"So you would profit from their suffering. Not directly—you would never slit a throat yourself. But indirectly, through the elegant mechanisms of capital allocation and value extraction. The blood would not be on your hands because it would be laundered through several layers of financial instruments first."

"That's not fair—"

"Is it not?" He smiled, but there was sorrow in it. "I spent years in Purgatory considering the nature of indirect sin. Let me tell you what I learned: The soul knows. You can tell yourself sophisticated stories about strategic positioning and using the master's tools and earning to give. But the soul knows. It knows when you profit from violence, even violence committed by others, even violence sanitized through spreadsheets and quarterly reports."

On the Seduction of Wealth

"But with wealth," I protested, "I could do so much more good. I could buy factory farms and convert them to sanctuaries. I could fund veganic agriculture research. I could—"

"Could you?" He stood and began walking along the farm's edge. I followed. "Let me show you something. Not vision or prophecy—just extrapolation. Just what tends to happen."

We walked in silence for a moment, and the air seemed to shift.

"You are twenty-eight. You take the position. The salary is more money than you have ever imagined. Two hundred thousand dollars. You tell yourself: I am still vegan. I am still committed. This is just strategic positioning."

"Yes," I said quietly.

"The first dinner with partners. They order steak. You order pasta with vegetables. One of them jokes about vegans. You smile politely. You do not speak about the animals because you are new, you need credibility, you must be taken seriously first."

I felt a tightness in my chest.

"Three months later, another dinner. You have stopped wearing your animal liberation buttons. Too political for the office. You have removed the sanctuary photos from your desk. Too emotional for serious finance. You tell yourself: I can advocate later, once I have influence."

"I wouldn't—"

"Wouldn't you?" His voice was not unkind. "Six months. Your colleagues ask why you are vegan. You say 'health reasons' or 'environmental concerns.' You do not mention the pigs, because the pigs are not professional. The pigs are not strategic. The pigs are too... earnest. Too vulnerable. Too likely to make people uncomfortable."

We stopped walking. The pigs were visible in the distance, dark shapes against golden hay.

"One year. You are good at the work. Your analyses are sharp. You are promoted. Your salary increases. You move to a better apartment. You date someone who is 'mostly plant-based'—she eats fish sometimes, eggs from 'good farms.' You do not press the issue. Relationships require compromise."

On the Slow Corruption

"Two years." His voice was quiet now, nearly a whisper. "You attend an animal rights conference. You are uncomfortable. The activists seem... extreme. Emotional. Unstrategic. They talk about total liberation, about revolution. You find yourself thinking: That is not realistic. That is not how change happens. Change happens through institutional reform, through smart capital allocation, through people like me who understand both worlds."

"But you understand neither. Not anymore. You have forgotten the language of the animals—not because you decided to forget, but because you stopped using it. Languages fade when unused. And you have not learned the language of power—not truly. You have only learned to mimic it, to wear it like an expensive suit that never quite fits."

The afternoon light was fading. The air grew cooler.

"Five years. You are making half a million dollars. You have purchased a condominium. Your partner—you are engaged now—is planning a wedding that will serve 'mostly plant-based' food with some fish for guests who 'cannot do vegan.' You agree because you are tired of being difficult, tired of being the one who always says no, always draws lines, always makes things complicated."

"You donate twenty-five thousand dollars to an animal sanctuary. You think: This is more than most people give. You do not think: This is five percent of my income, and I am earning that income from a portfolio that includes restaurants serving animal flesh, logistics companies transporting animal bodies, pharmaceutical companies testing on animals."

"You do not think these things because thinking them would require action, and action would require sacrifice, and sacrifice would mean—"

"Stop." My voice was hoarse.

On What Is Lost

Dante looked at me with something like compassion. "Ten years. You are thirty-eight. Partner. Two million annually. Eight million in accumulated wealth. Two children being raised vegetarian—not vegan, vegetarian, because your spouse insisted and you stopped fighting. You tell yourself they are growing up conscious, growing up caring. You do not tell yourself they are learning that using animals is acceptable if done 'kindly.'"

"You have become the person you would have despised at twenty-two. But you do not notice, because the change was gradual. Each compromise was small. Each rationalization was reasonable. Each step seemed justified."

"And now you tell yourself: Five more years. If I stay five more years, I could have twenty million. Then I could really make a difference. Then I could start my veganic investment fund. Then—"

"Then is a country you will never visit. Then is always five more years away. Then is the lie we tell ourselves to justify now."

We had circled back to the oak tree. The sun was low. The pigs had settled down for the evening, pressed against each other for warmth.

"Could you sit with them now?" Dante asked. "Could you walk into that field and sit with those pigs, and tell them about your private equity work? Could you explain to a being who escaped slaughter that you are profiting from the slaughter of her kin?"

I could not answer.

"The soul knows," he said again, gently. "That is why you came to me. That is why you are troubled. Not because you doubt the logic—the logic is impeccable. But because your soul knows what you would become."

On the European Understanding

"Let me tell you something about wealth," Dante said, settling back against the tree. "I come from a tradition that has watched empires rise and fall, that has seen fortunes made and lost, that has spent centuries considering what wealth means for the soul. Not the classical view—glory, honor, legacy, the eternal name. We tried that. It led to amphitheaters where humans killed humans for entertainment, where empire was built on slave labor, where conquest was virtue."

"No. The European understanding that grew from the ashes of Rome learned something different: that wealth can become a prison, that comfort can numb the soul, that what you own begins to own you. We built cathedrals to remind ourselves of something larger than accumulation. We wrote poetry about how the richest merchant in Florence cannot buy an hour of peace if his soul is compromised."

"Americans—forgive me—often think of wealth as neutral, as tool, as means to ends. They think: I will earn money and then do good with it. This is the merchant republic speaking, the commercial empire. It is not untrue, but it is incomplete."

"Wealth shapes you. The act of accumulation changes what you value, how you see, what you think possible. You cannot acquire ten million through extraction and then deploy it for liberation. The acquiring process will have made you someone who no longer truly desires liberation—not the radical kind, not the complete kind. You will desire reform. Comfortable reform. Reform that does not threaten the system that made your wealth possible."

On What Dante Offers Instead

"Come," he said, standing. "Let me show you the other path. Not as dramatically—we need not descend through circles. Just as it is."

The scene shifted, or perhaps just my attention.

"You are twenty-eight. You decline the private equity offer. Your friends think you are foolish. You are not sure they are wrong. But you take work with a veganic farm, with an animal sanctuary, with a plant-based cooperative. Thirty thousand dollars a year. You live simply. You share housing. You cook your own meals from bulk grains and vegetables. You save five thousand dollars a year."

"It is hard. Sometimes you are tired. Sometimes you wonder if you made the right choice. But when you visit the sanctuary, when you sit with the pigs, you can look them in the eye without flinching. Your work and your ethics are aligned. There is no dissonance, no compartmentalization, no rationalization required."

"Three years. You are learning policy through free online courses, through volunteering with local legislators, through reading everything you can find. No university, no debt, no institutional capture. Your knowledge comes from direct experience and self-directed study. It is slower than the private equity path. It is also deeper."

"Six years. You are consulting for veganic farms, helping them navigate USDA programs. You earn sixty thousand dollars. This seems like very little compared to the private equity alternative. But you have no debt. You need less because you have not inflated your lifestyle. And you are doing what you set out to do: building infrastructure for animal liberation."

"Ten years. You are thirty-eight. You earn perhaps one hundred and forty thousand dollars through your consulting work. You have two hundred thousand saved. You are married to someone who shares your ethics—you met at an animal rights conference. Your children are vegan, joyfully, because that is what they know. They volunteer at sanctuaries. They understand that all beings deserve freedom."

On the Wealth That Matters

"You have built wealth that cannot be measured in currency," Dante continued. "You know veganic farmers across the country. They trust you. You trust them. This network, this web of relationships built on shared ethics—this is wealth. When you need help, when you face a challenge, these people will answer. Not because you pay them, but because you are part of the same work."

"You have knowledge wealth. You understand veganic agriculture, food policy, cooperative economics deeply. This expertise is rare. It cannot be purchased. It must be built through years of attention and practice."

"You have integrity wealth. Your words and actions align. When you say you are vegan, you mean it fully—not 'plant-based for health,' not 'vegan except,' but vegan in the complete sense. Your livelihood does not compromise your ethics. You earn money only through work that serves liberation, never through work that profits from exploitation."

"You have impact wealth. Because of your work, there are more veganic farms. There are policies that support plant-based agriculture. There are animals not born into exploitation because the system you helped build made veganic farming more viable. This impact compounds. Every year, your influence grows."

"And you have spiritual wealth." He looked at me directly. "You can sit with the pigs in peace. You can sleep without rationalization. You can move through the world knowing that your presence reduces suffering rather than profiting from it. This is wealth that private equity cannot buy because private equity is its antithesis."

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: Yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." — Gospel According to Jesus

And Dante smiled then, a rare true smile. "There is joy in this path. Don't imagine it's all struggle and sacrifice. There is deep joy in work that aligns with your soul. There is laughter in the cooperative kitchen. There is satisfaction in a well-grown harvest. There is peace in knowing your children learn compassion as their first language. There is delight in watching rescued pigs play in mud. This is not deprivation. This is richness beyond measure."

On the Choice

"So," Dante said. "You have seen both paths. One offers money. The other offers alignment. One promises power later. The other provides peace now. One says you can earn through extraction and give to liberation. The other says you earn through liberation and give through living."

"Which path honors the pigs?" he asked quietly.

I looked at them, peaceful in the twilight, their day of rooting and sunning complete.

"The second," I said.

"Then why," he asked, "would you even consider the first?"

It was the question I had needed to hear.

"Because I am afraid," I admitted. "Afraid that I will not make enough money. Afraid that I will miss opportunities. Afraid that I will look back at forty or fifty and regret not taking the wealth when it was offered."

"Yes," he said. "Fear. That is what drives most people into the golden handcuffs. Not greed—fear. Fear of insufficiency. Fear of missing out. Fear of being ordinary in a culture that worships extraordinariness measured in dollars."

"But let me ask you this: When you are fifty, sitting with pigs at a sanctuary, which version of yourself would you rather be? The one with millions and a compromised soul who can no longer meet their eyes? Or the one with modest savings and complete integrity who can sit with them in absolute peace?"

I knew the answer. I had always known the answer. That is why I had been troubled.

"The soul knows," Dante said one last time. "Listen to it. It is wiser than your ambition, more reliable than your calculations, truer than your fears."

On the European Wisdom

"One more thing," he said as I prepared to leave. "In my time, we believed in Purgatory—the place where souls are purified before they can enter Paradise. You might not believe in this literally. But as metaphor, it teaches something true: Some stains take longer to wash clean than others. Some choices leave marks on the soul that must be worked through, must be healed, before you can be whole."

"Private equity would stain your soul. Not permanently—no choice is irreversible, no soul is beyond redemption. But it would take years to wash clean. Years of work, years of recommitment, years of proving to yourself that you have not sold what cannot be bought back."

"Why do that to yourself? Why choose the path that requires such extensive cleansing later? Why not simply walk the clean path from the beginning?"

"This is not the Roman way, I know. Romans would say: Achieve glory first, worry about purity later. Build the empire, justify it afterwards. But we learned what that led to. We learned the cost."

"The European way—at least the way I learned after walking through Hell and Purgatory and glimpsing Paradise—is different. It says: The means and the ends cannot be separated. The path and the destination are one. What you become during the journey is what you arrive as."

"Walk the pure path. Not because you are pure—none of us are. But because you wish to become purer. Not because it is easy—it is not. But because it is true."

The Farewell

"Go," Dante said. "The pigs are settling in for night. The farm work is done. The choice is yours to make."

"But I think you have already made it, or you would not have been troubled enough to come looking for me. The soul was speaking. You just needed someone to translate what it was saying."

"What was it saying?" I asked.

"That wealth at the cost of your ethics is poverty. That power at the cost of your integrity is weakness. That a compromised soul cannot liberate anything, least of all itself."

"Walk the humble path. Earn modestly. Live simply. Work directly for liberation. Connect with others doing the same. Build the infrastructure, slowly, patiently, without compromise."

"This is not glorious. This will not make you famous. This will not make you rich. But it will make you whole. And wholeness, in a fragmenting world, is the rarest treasure."

I stood to leave. The last light was fading from the sky. The pigs were quiet mounds in the gathering dark.

"Thank you," I said.

"Do not thank me," he replied. "Thank your soul, which troubled you enough to seek clarity. And honor it by choosing clearly."

"Choose the animals. Choose integrity. Choose the path your deepest self already knows is true."

I walked back through the darkening fields. Behind me, I heard him say one last thing, so quietly I almost missed it:

"In the middle of the journey of your life, you came to yourself in a dark wood where the straight way was lost. But you looked for it. And you found it. That is the whole story. Now live it."

And then, even quieter, like a blessing on the wind:

"Go in peace. Walk with joy. Serve with love. The animals will know you by your gentleness, the land will know you by your care, the people will know you by your integrity. This is enough. This is everything. Be blessed."

Epilogue: For Those Who Must Choose (A Prayer of Gratitude)

Private equity is not strategic positioning. It is temptation dressed in the language of impact.

You think you will earn money and deploy it for good. But the earning will change you. The environment will shape you. The compromises will accumulate. And in ten years, you will be someone who donates to animal causes but profits from animal exploitation. Someone who claims to care but has learned not to see.

Better to earn less and remain yourself. Better to build slowly with clean hands than quickly with stained ones. Better to sit with the animals in peace than visit them in guilt.

Dante understood this. Not because he was perfect—he was not. But because he had walked far enough down the wrong paths to know where they led. And he came back to tell us: There is a better way. It is harder. It is humbler. But it leads to wholeness.

Choose wholeness. Choose integrity. Choose the animals. Choose the path your soul already knows.

And as you choose, know that you are not alone. You join a lineage of those who chose compassion over accumulation, integrity over wealth, service over extraction. The Buddha walked this path. Jesus walked this path. Every saint and sage who ever lived walked this path. You walk with them, and they with you.

"May all beings be happy. May all beings be free from suffering. May all beings live in peace." — Buddhist Metta Prayer

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures." — Psalm 23

"Blessed be Jah Rastafari, who teaches that all creation is sacred, that every being deserves freedom, that compassion is the highest law."

Go now with this blessing: May your work be fruitful. May your heart stay tender. May your hands stay clean. May your sleep be peaceful. May the animals you serve feel your love. May the earth you tend flourish under your care. May the people you influence be moved toward compassion. May your life be a living prayer of ahimsa.

Amen. Blessed be. So it is. 🙏

Released to Public Domain with Gratitude and Love.
For those who hear their soul speaking.
For those who choose the humble, clean path.
For those who honor the pigs and all beings.

🌱🐖✨

Timestamp: 12025-10-06--rhizome-valley
Iteration: 9978v (Vegan Variant, Dante Dialogue Revision)

"The soul knows. Listen to it."

Walk the clean path.
Choose wholeness.
Honor the beings.

🌱