Introducing myself

Imagine we are in some cringy professional development course and we are asked to introduce ourselves with our name, and why we are here. Most likely, they would also ask us to say something else inane that alludes somehow, but not really, to our personalities, so let’s just say they ask what we think is the most superior pasta shape. I will pretend that this is not something that my family and I have discussed at length as people with Italian last names.

Hi, my name is Jessie, and I think large spirals are the most superior pasta shape as they cook evenly but trap sauce in their coils very well. Potentially, they curate one of the best sauce-to-pasta ratios that you could ever hope to achieve, despite large spirals existing in the supermarket as a pretty underrated shape.

But why am I here? Well, that is a bit of a longer answer. In 2019 I accidentally founded the Lonely Conservationists community and blog. I always say accidentally because I started the blog mainly to air my frustrations about not being able to hack it in the conservation industry after a lifetime of effort. Soon after I pressed publish on my first post, however, I realised that there were many others out there who could resonate with my angst. Thankfully, they all joined me in solidarity and genuinely kept me in the industry, bestowing upon me a newfound passion for caring for conservationists.

Lonely Conservationists is about to have our 6-year anniversary of existing in the world, and in that time we have accumulated over 200 blogs, some written by me, but mostly contributed by our amazing global community. Though the blogs have waned in submission frequency over time, they exist into the future as a hugely valuable resource for budding and burnt-out conservationists to have their feelings and experiences normalised.

The thing is, I started the blog because I really enjoy writing, but over the years as the community contributed, I added less and less of my own voice to ensure that the community voices shared were the most prominent stories for readers to find. I took to writing How to Conserve Conservationists to pass on what I thought was important to put into the world on the topic of cherishing Lonely Conservationists and then published a podcast under the same name to continue the conversation.

Over the last couple of months, I have had some more to say as I evolve with this community and in my own conservation journey and I was contemplating publishing another book, to the extent of sitting down and writing the first two chapters. I then considered another podcast series and some other big projects because that’s what I thought I had to do to carve out a space for myself somewhere in the Lonely Conservationists world. The truth of the matter is, however, that I just want to write short-form blog content and reconnect with the community again. I don’t want to stress myself out by doing big projects when, in reality, I just want to do some light tapping and put some easily digestible resources out into the world about caring for conservationists – as this is what I love to do.

Today as I was reading, my mind wandered off and I came across a very valuable thought. BAM! I need to carve out a little blogging space for myself that is separate but very much connected to Lonely Conservationists. When I say for myself, I am genuine in that this space will exist very much for me as much as it exists for you. You see, I am totally aware that not everyone likes to read blogs and I’d probably get more video views or podcast listens or book purchases- but this is something that brings me joy and thus this is what needs to be done to fit into my life.

This year I wanted to delve deeper into my passion for caring for conservationists because, to be honest, the thing that haunts my emotions the most is the lack of care that I feel I have received compared to the care that I have given to others or the natural world. In light of this, I wanted to provide a space where I can help to care for and advocate for you whilst I reinforce the need for care myself.

So going forth, I hope that I can accompany you with my words on many a long pooping session with this heartfelt reading material. I think that it will be better for your brain than short bursts of short-form videos and better for your heart to know that someone out there, really truly, does care about your life as a conservationist.

Despite us not really sitting in a professional development session (phewf!), I do think that my future musings could actually be pretty legitimate for professional and personal development- but I will leave that to you to decide. Anyway, if you have read this first post, thank you for caring about my writing and for kicking off this care symbiosis. As Mr G would say “Success in the bush!” (this is also something that I have said since the early 2000’s as a result of watching the Summer Heights High DVD cut scenes, but I totally get if you don’t understand).

Care homework

Watch some nostalgic tv or read a nostalgic book, I read a few books recently that were written in the early 2000’s when email was used as a casual communication tool and I don’t know why but it was super soul nourishing.