Holly, if you will permit me an indulgence, I have a non-preachy Christian take I'd like to share. If you won't suffer it on your substack, feel free to delete, no hard feelings.
Despair is a lie told by the prince of liars. That liar wants you to feel alone and isolated, not worthy of anything from anyone, and more especially not worthy of our King of Kings.
Hope is a gift of the Spirit.
In all circumstances, you have the power to choose between them. In all circumstances, if you look for the ugly, you will find it. In all circumstances, if you look for beauty, you will find it instead.
Choose the Spirit's gift, not the liar's monstrous lies. Choose beauty.
Thank you, Holly. I remember reading this essay of yours before. Trans activists break the guidelines All the Time, and the media who should know better help them. This is no different.
Thanks, again, Holly for you very sensible and accurate essay. Most especially your intro. The social media reaction to this man’s “ultimate protest” once again casts a bright light on what is Death Cult thinking. This is about even more than the demonization of Israel and Jews. It is a society-wide zeitgeist that espouses doing anything and everything to achieve a goal, even if that goal is death and destruction.
There have been many, many studies on the "social contagion" effect, where news reporting on a high profile suicide actually causes an increase in national suicide rates afterward. In more scrupulous times, media organizations had guidelines on how to ethically report on high profile suicides to avoid causing this effect. This is why, for example, you may have first heard reported that Robin Williams "died at home." These guidelines seem to have been abandoned in the case of this recent incident.
There is evidence that the social contagion effect extends to things like mass shootings as well, which media organizations also ignore.
Yet more reasons that no matter how much you hate journalists, you don't hate them enough.
I don’t know who you helped or how many but I’m sure they thank you. I read. A lot. Some of them quite good. A couple very good. But a vanishingly rare person pops up that doesn’t write fiction and has a powerful voice to change someone’s world or maybe -the- world. You’ve done good things. Great things to the person or people that needed to hear this message. I wish this post didn’t sound like some fanboy post but I feel like genuinely good authors or speakers often get buried under all the noise and may feel like they’re not heard of are, at best, ineffectual. This is just to reassure you that are heard and effective. An amazing post. Thanks.
I haven’t seen any conversation about the legal suicide in Canada. I understand these people are in pain and mainly terminal. How does this fit in your mind? I knew a guy who had MS and chose it. His 28 year old son committed suicide after. The Hemingway curse?
My 17 year old daughter was checked into a psychiatric facility this week because her pediatrician discovered she had active suicidal thoughts and a plan. I’ve read this article a couple times but it never hit me where I live before. She’s not allowed to have electronic devices in the hospital but I think I’m going to print this out for her.
The crisis services people talked to her the evening I took her to the ER and found out what her plan was, and then told me. I haven’t been able to get the image out of my mind.
I’m willing to use any tool at my disposal to help keep her here. Hopefully this article speaks to her.
Excellent.
Holly, if you will permit me an indulgence, I have a non-preachy Christian take I'd like to share. If you won't suffer it on your substack, feel free to delete, no hard feelings.
Despair is a lie told by the prince of liars. That liar wants you to feel alone and isolated, not worthy of anything from anyone, and more especially not worthy of our King of Kings.
Hope is a gift of the Spirit.
In all circumstances, you have the power to choose between them. In all circumstances, if you look for the ugly, you will find it. In all circumstances, if you look for beauty, you will find it instead.
Choose the Spirit's gift, not the liar's monstrous lies. Choose beauty.
Thank you Holly! This is so true. I am going to write about it on my blog and will share your excellent post again. Thank you for all you do. ❤️
Thank you, Holly. I remember reading this essay of yours before. Trans activists break the guidelines All the Time, and the media who should know better help them. This is no different.
Thanks, again, Holly for you very sensible and accurate essay. Most especially your intro. The social media reaction to this man’s “ultimate protest” once again casts a bright light on what is Death Cult thinking. This is about even more than the demonization of Israel and Jews. It is a society-wide zeitgeist that espouses doing anything and everything to achieve a goal, even if that goal is death and destruction.
There have been many, many studies on the "social contagion" effect, where news reporting on a high profile suicide actually causes an increase in national suicide rates afterward. In more scrupulous times, media organizations had guidelines on how to ethically report on high profile suicides to avoid causing this effect. This is why, for example, you may have first heard reported that Robin Williams "died at home." These guidelines seem to have been abandoned in the case of this recent incident.
There is evidence that the social contagion effect extends to things like mass shootings as well, which media organizations also ignore.
Yet more reasons that no matter how much you hate journalists, you don't hate them enough.
I wish I'd had this in my past. However, I'm grateful I will have it for any future time that may or may not rear up. Thanks for sharing.
I don’t know who you helped or how many but I’m sure they thank you. I read. A lot. Some of them quite good. A couple very good. But a vanishingly rare person pops up that doesn’t write fiction and has a powerful voice to change someone’s world or maybe -the- world. You’ve done good things. Great things to the person or people that needed to hear this message. I wish this post didn’t sound like some fanboy post but I feel like genuinely good authors or speakers often get buried under all the noise and may feel like they’re not heard of are, at best, ineffectual. This is just to reassure you that are heard and effective. An amazing post. Thanks.
I haven’t seen any conversation about the legal suicide in Canada. I understand these people are in pain and mainly terminal. How does this fit in your mind? I knew a guy who had MS and chose it. His 28 year old son committed suicide after. The Hemingway curse?
Thank you. That is all I have to say.
My 17 year old daughter was checked into a psychiatric facility this week because her pediatrician discovered she had active suicidal thoughts and a plan. I’ve read this article a couple times but it never hit me where I live before. She’s not allowed to have electronic devices in the hospital but I think I’m going to print this out for her.
The crisis services people talked to her the evening I took her to the ER and found out what her plan was, and then told me. I haven’t been able to get the image out of my mind.
I’m willing to use any tool at my disposal to help keep her here. Hopefully this article speaks to her.
Thank you Holly.