Never Meet Your Heroes

One thought that has preoccupied me since the very beginning of this journal is that readers may extrapolate an idealized image of me based on my writings. I’m writing this journal entry to hopefully counterbalance that.

If you’ve been reading my journal entries, you certainly know more about me and the way I think than a stranger would. But if you draw conclusions about me based only on what I’ve written, don’t forget that what you know consists only of what I’ve carefully chosen to reveal and that what I’ve written about myself in the past may no longer be true today.

While I take great care that what I omit within a given journal entry doesn’t mislead readers about me or my life, there is an active and ongoing selection bias in the journal entries that get written in the first place. In the same way that people don’t post unflattering things about themselves on social media, I don’t publish things I don’t want people to know about me here either. This journal, therefore, will likely never accurately depict my personality nor my life.

So please don’t make a saint out of me just because I write about activist-related things. I can assure you that I’m not one. I don’t want to be anyone’s hero. Speaking more generally as a piece of life advice, just don’t have heroes. Any person you think is praiseworthy or admirable has almost certainly done or thought something that would repulse you. I’m no exception.