How We Got Here

Hi! For those of you that don’t know me — I’m Jamie, a vegan blogger who loves animals and is traveling the US in a van. I’d like to talk briefly today about how I got here, what I’ve been up to recently, and what’s next.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ve probably noticed my content ebb and flow in terms of focus and length. From recipes to long pieces on veganism to healthy habits, we’ve done a lot of things and been a lot of things here at The Estero Story. 

In part, because of how much my own life has ebbed and flowed in that time. When I started this blog in November 2019, I was a senior year college student living in a house with 7 other guys in Santa Barbara. Now I’m living in a van traveling the U.S. blogging, volunteering, working, and visiting national parks.

At the start of the blog, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with it, other than begin expressing myself creatively through writing and try to spread good vegan recipes in an attempt to help other people. Over time the details have changed but these two core elements of self-expression and helping others have remained at the forefront of my mind.

At the beginning of my van journey I was a bit overwhelmed with both how much there was out in the world to do and with the transition of living in a van. The latter subsided as I got used to the different realities of bathroom, shower, sleep, food, etc. when living off-grid in a van in the woods.

The former ceased to overwhelm, but the underlying questions continued to ring in my head.

That isn’t to say I was unhappy — I was living the dream. I did so for several months, traveling in Arizona, Utah, California, and Oregon — visiting friends on occasion but for 99% of the time, existing quietly out in solitude nestled between the redwoods of the cold snow-covered Central Oregon or the junipers of the Arizona desert. I saw both the Grand Canyon and the rocky slopes of Mount Tallac. Both the aspens of Flagstaff and the tumbleweeds of Kanab.

But questions of purpose continued to follow me wherever I went, no matter how luxurious and fun my life was.

Why was I here?

And perhaps more succinctly:

If I only had 6 months to live, what would I do differently?

This question was the alpha and omega of my journey of self-discovery as I realized that ultimately — I want to do what matters, not what is interesting. With my van and my freedom, I have the ability to do a lot of different things and ultimately to be a lot of different things. I want to be someone who does good and who utilizes what he had to make the world a better place. Someone who utilizes his van to not only be a vessel for having fun in national parks, but a vessel to travel to various communities to help. I want to look back on my time here and be proud of who I was and who I was able to help.

Although there are a lot of different pieces of the world that need help right now that I care about (i.e. politics, environmentalism), animals move me in a way that nothing else does. They are beautiful and amazing creatures that need our help right now. I advocate for a life of compassion and non-violence towards animals. 

Time is fleeting, and none of us really how much longer we’ve got. And as I have the opportunity now to pursue this advocacy and life of compassion further, I felt that it would be a disservice to both myself and the animals not to try.

Some people won’t understand and some people will mock me for my beliefs and for making meals harder for them but ultimately, I’m just a guy trying to help some animals. You can agree or disagree with my methodology (veganism) but I hope you will join me in loving them regardless.

What I’ve Been Doing

With this in mind, in December 2020 I decided to start volunteering at an animal sanctuary that I stumbled across while traveling across Utah called Best Friends, located in Kanab. I didn’t really have a long-term arc in mind at this stage (we’ll get to that later), but I knew I wanted to spend time with animals and to help in whatever way I could.

Over these past few months, I’ve explored the national parks of Southern Utah and volunteered at Best Friends about every weekend, volunteering primarily with the rabbits at the Bunny House and occasionally with the birds and tortoises of the Wild Friends department.

I’ve absolutely loved every minute. I got to spend time with ducks, chickens, tortoises, owls, loads of different breeds of bunnies, guinea pigs, and even got to interact briefly with goats, pigs, and parrots. My time with these creatures has been incredible beyond words, and seeing firsthand the beauty, intelligence, curiosity, and wonder in these animals is an incredible joy for me. Stay tuned for upcoming posts about my time at Best Friends. My time here has only continued to strengthen my belief that working to care for them and secure members of their kind a better life than what society gives them is something that I’m passionate about. I’m proud to be their advocate.

What’s Next

This all brings me to announce my plans for the blog. 

I plan to travel the U.S., volunteer at different animal sanctuaries, and write about the wonderful stories of the animals at these places. 

I hope this will give the readers an opportunity to connect with the cute animals of the animal sanctuaries from afar. While this will not become the exclusive content of the blog, it will be part of a recentering. There are many things I find interesting in this world that I could write about, but I believe my time is best used writing about those that I find meaningful. I will continue occasional “random” pieces (healthy habits, random thoughts, pieces about travel) all with the goal of hopefully helping  people, but I plan on writing a significant portion of my content around animals, veganism, and related topics of nonviolence and compassion. Whether or not you follow a plant-based diet yourself, I plan to still put out content that you can enjoy. You need not be vegan to enjoy content about bunnies at an animal sanctuary. 

It is of course my hope that my content can help promote a vegan lifestyle of compassion and nonviolence, but it hopefully will stand as a useful and enjoyable piece of writing irrespective of that. For example, the videos and photos I have posted recently on the blog Instagram are all cute videos of animals that can be enjoyed with or without the descriptions, which include fun facts about animals.

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A post shared by Jamie Clark (@theesterostory)

The Message

I’ve thought a lot about what kind of message I want to put out and what I want to say. Ultimately, a lot of the content out there around veganism and animal advocacy focuses on the negatives — and rightfully so as there are a lot of negatives to talk about! The ethical horrors of factory farming (documentary), the environmental devastation of animal agriculture (my article on this), and the health concerns concerned with meat and dairy consumption (documentary) being the main three that come to mind.

Honestly though — there’s so much negative content out there period. There’s so much wrong with the world right now that it wouldn’t even fit in a book nonetheless a blog post. In an era where the majority of our lives are either attempts to grapple with and fight against the evil and injustice that exists in the world or attempts to make sense of it all, I want to be a voice of hope and positivity. 

In a time where the newsfeed is all negative, I want to be the one post of positivity. The refreshing animal video that you can watch. The cute picture of bunnies snuggled up together. The story of an animal sanctuary taking care of all of its residents and the feature stories on individual ones. A reprieve. Because I believe there is a place for positivity in the fight to do good. While we can’t deny the existence of the negative we are fighting against, we don’t have to focus all of our content on it. 

I don’t have to write all of my articles and posts as feature length hit pieces on the animal agriculture industry (although some certainly will be!) to successfully promote a lifestyle of compassion towards animals. I can instead share vegan recipes, cute pictures of animals, and heartwarming stories of both animal intelligence and animal personality. I can host vegan dinners and help out at animal sanctuaries. I can continue to tell my story and how a plant-based diet has been possibly the best decision of my life.

It is through both personal experience and through one of my inspirations, renowned Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, that I’ve come to this place of positive advocacy. Thich Nhat Hanh is known for both his advocacy against the Vietnam war and as a spiritual teacher in his writings. He radiates compassion and is one of the purest and kindest souls I have witnessed. And yet he is not trampled out by history for his kindness, as we are so often led to believe will happen to those who are outwardly kind in their advocacy. To the contrary, he is world renowned. His manner of kind but firm peaceful advocacy resonated with me on a profound level, and combined with my rediscovered empathy for animals and desire to spread compassion, has influenced the way I advocate.

This is not to say that aggressive advocacy that discusses the negatives as a primary focus is wrong — I believe it is vital and necessary at times. It’s just not always necessary, and not always the most effective. Knowing when to preach and when to silent serve up vegan scones instead is important. When to post a long writing piece about factory farms and when to post a cute animal video. When to discuss the harmful practices going on and when to discuss how awesome animals are. When to focus on the negative and when to focus on the positive. And more often than not, the positive is what’s missing.

I believe it is possible to affect change and affect people through a positive message, and I believe that the first step towards nonviolence is understanding. I believe educating on animal capabilities and sharing the unique personalities and stories of these intelligent, beautiful, and amazing creatures we share our planet with can help revive the empathy we innately have for them that has been societally repressed. I believe in love, hope, compassion, nonviolence, and in animals.

TL;DR Expect more animal content on here as it’s what I’m passionate about. I plan on traveling across the US to various animal sanctuaries to try to help by both volunteering and blogging about my experiences in an effort to raise publicity for the sanctuaries and raise awareness. Thought pieces will still be around, just a chunk of them around animals and veganism now. Hope you enjoy.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this piece, it would mean a lot to me if you were to subscribe (link in sidebar) where you will get emails about new posts. It helps me get an accurate size of our community and any form of support is much appreciated. I also put out a series of short-form content (including cute animal videos) and updates on The Estero Story Instagram and TikTok, if you are interested.

I’ve also added a donation button, if you want to help fund my gas bill to the next animal sanctuary. Anything helps, thank you.