For some reason I don’t care enough to think about, the term “thesis statement” used to piss me off back in high school.

The gist of a thesis statement is that you’re summing up in a sentence or two an argument that you intend to prove over the course of your paper.  The way writing is typically taught is that you’re encouraged to come up with forced to provide your thesis statement in your opening paragraph, and then spend the remainder of your essay attempting to concoct a convincing argument that backs up this statement.

In my case, back in high school, I’d typically choose a thesis I didn’t give a flying fuck about, and so I’d spend the remainder of my paper coloring in an argument I had no stake in, whether pro or con.  Invariably, the teacher cared even less about my thesis and supporting arguments than I did, and would give me a B or a C depending on whether he got laid the night before.

Anyway, back to thesis statements. In actual practice, I think writing teachers have it backwards.  I think what really happens is that you write for a while and, in time, the writing you do uncovers your thesis.  Writing may be a way to entertain or inform readers, but for the writer it’s an act of exploration.  You don’t have a firm idea of what you’re saying until you actually try to say it.

This is all my way of saying that when I began this tumblelog, I had no clear idea what my thesis was, but now I think I have something in mind.  I can’t go back and inject my thesis into paragraph one of tumblelog entry #1, so I’m stuck doing it here.  That is to say: this collection of writing, in whatever form it ultimately takes, is aimed toward people who care about animal cruelty, want to prevent it in some way, and want to get a whole lot better at this work.

So perhaps that’s why I felt this urgency to dive into writing this without dickering around researching blogging platforms and theses and whatnot.  There’s a whole lot I haven’t thought through but one thing I’m certain of is that I’ve got a lot of interesting and useful things to share with aspiring, novice, and intermediate activists.  I’m pretty sure there are at least ten or twenty people who will read this work and double—-perhaps even quintuple—-their effectiveness.  Maybe one of them is you.

And if that’s all I accomplish from several months of work, I’d consider it time well spent.  So, while it’s not in the first paragraph, there’s your belated thesis for you.