When You Learn to Block a Hater
Some thoughts about dignity and boundaries
Not so long ago, I used to feel guilty every time I blocked someone here on Substack.
It is almost embarrassing to remember, but here we go.
The moment I clicked the block button, I felt as if I had failed.
As if I had shut a door that I should have kept open, or if I owed strangers more patience than I ever gave myself.
Back then my imposter syndrome was still alive and strong in me.
Every rude sentence was like a hand on my throat, a simple hateful comment could stay in my mind for days.
You have no idea how many times I thought about ending this journal.
I thought I was not strong enough, or that the world was telling me to stop.
But there was something I learned slowly:
No matter who you are, where you are, there will be always those people that dislike you.
Two percent, five percent, whatever life decides on that day.
Some of them will even go a step further and express hate toward you
And it is almost never about you, only about them.
It is their own hurt and bitterness, or their refusal to see you as a person.
For a long time I thought I needed to explain myself to the people who hate me.
I thought I had to convince them, to prove something, or to turn their anger into understanding if I just tried harder.
How silly I was.
I wondered what the point was of fighting for democracy if I start restricting those who disagree with me…
Most of you have a wisdom and experience that I only dream about having someday, and so you already know nothing is unanimous in this world.
And you know that not everyone likes this country called Ukraine.
Some people dislike Ukrainians for simply being alive.
This is not new in history.
This might be one of the oldest things in our species. Wherever someone is simply breathing, there will be another person who hates only because they need something or someone to hate in order to feel alive.
My journal was never created to hide you from all this.
You definitely do not need me reminding you that the world carries hate.
Even though we are connected because of an invasion that began because someone wanted to control and hurt, this is a space where we are meant to meet for resistance.
Where you and I try to keep something human alive.
After three, almost four years, after more than two hundred articles I think, something changed in me.
I stopped thinking about how I felt.
I started thinking about what I am leaving to this world.
I started thinking about the people who come here tired, hopeful, frightened, curious, or simply looking for a piece of strength.
And suddenly I understood that blocking someone was never an act of hate.
It was care.
Responsibility.
Protection.
Blocking a hater protects me from descending back into that old hole where one stranger’s bitterness could silence me for a week.
It protects you from reading cruelty that adds nothing to the world.
Protects the hater himself, which is quite curious, because it cuts at least one place where he would keep feeding the same poison again and again.
One day I realized I was helping everybody at the same time.
That was the moment when blocking became something clean and natural.
Something almost pleasant, I admit.
Like pulling weeds from the soil so the good roots can breathe, or trimming sick branches so the tree grows stronger.
Authentically like keeping a garden alive.
This journal is the place where I was ever closest to myself.
Where I speak without armor, where you meet my thoughts the way they truly come.
So I have the right to protect this space.
We have the right to protect what we are building here.
Here, I need only the ones who feel something when they read these lines.
The ones who look at Ukraine and see a person, not a headline. Who still believe that a heart can answer another heart across an ocean.
Every time you come here, you give me a piece of your time, and this is worth more than most people ever offer each other.
This is why I must guard this place like the last warm light in a hard world.
This is why I do not hesitate when someone arrives only to poison the room.
Blocking was supposed to be a small thing, but it taught me how to guard what matters.
It taught me that dignity grows one boundary at a time.
No one needs every subscriber on Earth.
We need only the right ones.
And without any doubt left, I already have them.
This work has given me the biggest pride of my life after being a father and standing for a country.
And strange as it sounds, I discover that learning how to block the wrong people was an important part of this journey.
It did not provide growth only to a writer, but to a fragile and immature person called Viktor.
It helped me keep close what keeps me alive.
This space we are building.
These memories.
This Ukraine that endures what no country should endure.
This fragment of life that we refuse to let die.
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Everything here will always remain free to read, but if you can, becoming a paid subscriber helps me keep this space alive for anyone who arrives here looking for a little strength.
Victor, you are very wise and I thank you for sharing your thoughts, feeling and wisdom with us. BTW The pictures are beautiful. 🩵💛
Viktor, Nah! Focus on the ones who support you. There are lots of us! 😊