I now have enemies
I have come to the business of having enemies somewhat late. I will be 60 years old in just a few weeks and, to the best of my knowledge, I have not had enemies before. But now I do; and I don’t know how I feel about it.
I didn’t have enemies as a child. I had people I didn’t like and that didn’t like me. But we generally just avoided each other. I didn’t have enemies when I was a young adult. I had sporting rivals that took pleasure in kicking me on the football pitch, but even those weren’t enemies. Through most of my adulthood, my life was an enemy-free zone.
But now I have actual bona fide enemies; enemies that are actively seeking to undermine and ultimately destroy me.
As a straight-shooting journalist who has built his reputation on presenting the facts in a “warts and all” and blunt fashion, it was inevitable that I would ruffle some feathers along the way. But never to the point that individuals and groups of people were openly hostile; that they attempt to have me excluded; that they take to the Internet to tell their tiny group of followers that I am “odious”.
I never took the job of journalist to make friends in the first place, and I take solace in the fact that I have way more supporters than I do enemies. Winston Churchill once said: “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” I take solace in that too. And inspiration.
I’d much rather go through life without having my every move and my every utterance quizzed and questioned; and without a sign reading “pariah” slung around my neck. But none of that is of my doing, and I cannot change the way others see me. Come to think of it, I am no longer content with just having enemies. Anyone can do that. I want a nemesis. I want a Joker, a Voldemort or a Moriarty.
How does one go about finding an arch-enemy?
