A Short Letter To A Hater — Jeff Mach Writes

One of my resolutions, now that I’m both (weirdly enough) a bestselling author and a bestselling promoter, is to stop replying to haters. I still have a general policy of seldom blocking people, and I still have a general policy of not backing down or away from physical confrontation. So I’m subjected to both more psychological pushing and shoving, and more actual, physical pushing and shoving. Both remind me that I need fear neither one.

(I’ve only been in three actual fights in the past three years; all three fights were extremely decisive. I avoid fighting at all costs and whenever possible; but I have no fear of it, and my feelings are based on my actual experiences.)

I’ve mentioned that how, if you leave out all of one side of a story, you automatically make the deleted side into the monster. Suddenly, someone has no motivation for their actions, no justification, no reason; that person does horrible things because that person’s horrible, and it’s that simple.

(It gets even simpler, of course: there’s not necessarily any reason to believe the person even TOOK any of those actions; all we have is the word of the narrator, and we already know what the narrator wants us to believe.)

But I feel comfortable offering this letter, which is quite one-sided, because I have no intention of naming the person or business involved. I’ll just note that I’m responding to a very witty email they sent me, which consisted of two words:

“Bet. STFU.”

[For those not acquainted with modern linguistic advances, “Bet” is sometimes an abbreviation for ‘you can bet on THAT’. In this case, as this person and I are both Pagan-adjacent, I had mentioned that everything we do comes back to us three times; i.e., that our actions have consequences. This person, using the charming brevity of the rude, confirmed our mutual belief whilst implying that, obviously, <I>I</I> would suffer negative consequences because I am, as everyone knows, Pure Evil.

But then she said “STFU”, which, for those who do not know the term, means ‘Shut The F’ck Up’.

This was my response. I didn’t write it to her, and I doubt she knows about this journal; I don’t care if she reads it or not, as I didn’t write it for her benefit. It’s a general statement about where I am in life:

<I>

*sigh*

I was quite ready to end this on a simple note, but you were kind enough to bring up one of the points that matters to you.

This is the real world; this is real life.

I’m not saying that the karma we accrue is unreal; I’m just saying that we’ll be dealing with it individually and metaphysically.

But no. I will never “stfu”, thank you.

In real life, actions have consequences. (For example, you’re going to be in my next book. This doesn’t matter to you; but I needed inspiration for a particular character; thank you for providing it.)

You judged me before you knew me. You were so certain I would steal your money that you helped shut down part of an event, hurting other vendors, hurting other people, damaging lots of others, just to get at me.

What did you get?

If you truly want to believe you somehow stopped me from stealing from you and from others, congratulations! Since there was no theft, the event will continue. I’ll be back in April. I’ll be back next October. I’ll be back a few more times in the next year, and you helped make it happen.

Ultimately, the consequences of persecuting the innocent vary quite a lot. I’ll obviously never convince you of any kind of innocence on my part (I’ve met minds of solid rock, which have neither desire nor ability to change). I’m just saying:

I will never shut up.

I will never go away.

And you helped make it possible.</I>