I Am Not A Brand
A friend of mine once said something to me because he thought he was looking out for my career. He told me to not write a certain thing on social media because it would hurt my “brand.” He was trying to be helpful, but he didn’t understand a few things.
First, I was sharing, truthfully and without malice, a reason why I became a journalist.
Second, I was writing about a powerful person who had died, but had started wars, had used divide-and-conquer techniques to win power, and had lied, repeatedly, to the American people and the world. Those were all facts, not opinions. Yet certain news outlets were using the soft touch when covering his death, so I believed I had to speak up.
Third, I always saw writing and journalism as a calling – something that chose me, not the other way around. If I had considered that calling, and my life, a brand, it would have cheapened my calling and life. Both things are sacred, not merely a commodity that can be bought and then discarded.
I explained some of those things to my friend.
I never make decisions based on what it would do to my “brand.” Instead, I try (though I sometimes forget) to make decisions based on something written by Thomas Merton, a famous American Catholic monk from back in the day:
“If I do not know who I am, it is because I think I am the sort of person everyone around me wants to be. Perhaps I have never asked myself whether I really wanted to become what everybody else seems to want to become. Perhaps if I only realized that I do not admire what everyone seems to admire, I would really begin to live after all. I would be liberated from the painful duty of saying what I really do not think and acting in a way that betrays God’s truth and the integrity of my own soul.”
It’s not necessary to believe in God to understand, and live, what Merton had written.
I’m not perfect, but I am not a brand. It would betray, one way or another, the integrity of my soul, my life, my calling.