Shut Up, They Explained
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Medium (Personal)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/07/02
As I know from rich experience, if you report on something uncomfortable, i.e., what have traditionally called truths, whether crimes of churches throughout Canada, institutional inequalities with American Christians versus the non-religious, racial bigotries leading to lifelong differential outcomes, and like, some people would rather try to damage reputation or personally harass you, even stalk a bit.
I haven’t gotten to the point of receiving physical violence. However, the attempts to get me fired, defame me openly, and stalk me, have happened, not amazing, as many journalists have been killed, jailed, harassed, and defamed in the past. I’ve gotten off easy. Forms of intimidation to simply say, or explain rather, “Shut up.” Many of you have read the rather disheartening news about the mass of murdered and jailed journalists around the world.
These are the conditions under which we will be tested. These are the contexts upon which our selves will be made. The nature of the difficulty is, as a reminder, not unique in human history. How you feel in the midst of writing, in getting your next story, in working for your next big job, in the struggle with any mental health difficulties, the pain of wanting to write when having to make money at another job, and the pain of physical and mental injuries, I understand. In each of those, I have been there.
I send this as an encouragement to the downtrodden person who is having a hard time. Because you have been victimized by life, by fate, by other people, by yourself, it’s not an excuse to be a victim as an identity. I do not deny most people who claim some form of victiminzation, as life can be a long series of unfolding griefs. However, if you take this as an excuse to play the victim based on it, you become a burden to many others if for an extended period of time and prevent yourself the victory of integration and continuance.
I do not know who will ever read this, if ever, but I am thinking of you. Don’t give up, keep writing, even privately when you don’t want to do it, as Vonnegut reminds us, you will have created something. In the act, you will have exported the negativity from yourself, about yourself, and directed notat yourself now.
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