Submitted by An Animal-Friendly Life

It would appear that I’ve been blogging here at ananimalfriendlylife.com for three years now. Looking back at all my old posts, it’s funny to see how much has changed, and how I have grown as well (along with AAFL’s ever-growing audience). Voicing my thoughts and feelings online as frequently as I have, and engaging readers, has been an important part of my overall development as a thinker, writer and activist. I want to thank everyone for humoring me, challenging me and sticking with me these past three years.

My first couple of posts on April 4, 2005 were brief excerpts from New York Times pieces on foie gras, basically with no commentary. For over two years, I hewed closely to following the news cycle, probably in part due to the influence DawnWatch had on my decision to launch this site (though I wanted to create a more contemporary presence with my blog, rather than establish yet another mailing list). Despite my change of venue, I took a similar approach to Karen, highlighting animal issues whenever they appeared in the media–often covering a wider array of stories in a more diverse array media, not just the major national media–and encouraging readers to write letters in response.

Over time, I became more and more confident about adding my own commentary and trying to influence the thinking of my readers. As I wrote, I provoked myself, too, stimulating further growth and development as a thinker, writer and activist, and it is quite obvious to anyone who’s been following for a long time–or to anyone who wants to take periodic writing samples from over the years–that my views on animal-friendly living have evolved considerably.

I like that.

We can become entrenched in our ways, and in our thinking. I spent most of my life eating animals and their secretions, never thinking of those products as anything but food. I wore them, I was amused by them and I benefitted from their exploitation in ways I never even imagined. Yet, even though I had been surrounded by animals all my life, I never once thought of other exploited animals as individuals with inherent value until the fateful day that I decided I was vegan (coming up on 6 years now). Of course, veganism is far from an ending point. In many ways, it was just the beginning.

Becoming vegan opened my eyes to a whole series of related institutionalized oppressions, and accelerated my development as a human being cognizant of my own privileges and obligations, for which I will be forever grateful, despite my anguished awareness of the unjustifiable harm that humans cause billions upon billions of sentient beings every year, including other humans.

Even after having one’s eyes opened in one respect, it can be difficult to remain open to change. One balks at having to make yet another large leap into scary, unknown territory. But, despite the sometimes difficult duties that deeper understanding can impose upon us, I’ve learned–first by going vegan, and subsequently by coming to acknowledge my privilege in our society and coming to a deeper understanding of human and non-human animal oppression–change can be good.

If the world is ever to become a better place for all of us earthlings, then we must demand change. We must actively seek it and not rest at the next plateau, thinking we finally have it all figured out. We must be humble, and continue to listen, not just to talk. If we keep our minds open and our heads on straight, further changes are inevitable, we can become better, and it is in that spirit with which I will continue to maintain this blog. I hope you’ll stick with me.

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.” — Frederick Douglass

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