complaining
being a reporter is stressful and isolating and i need to adjust to the lifestyle
I’ve spent the past three months since graduating college entangled in the utterly bleak cycle of Israeli news, covering crime day in and day out without room in my schedule for much else.
The hard news items I write usually have something to do with shootings, stabbings, car bombings, Palestinian security prisoners and other similarly dismal topics, while the “lighter” stories I cover concern unfortunate individuals — usually Arabs — who have fallen through the cracks of Israel’s legal system in one way or another.
At all waking hours of the day, I’m expected to be prepared to drop everything and type out quick updates on police statements of note. So I remain glued to my phone in a constant state of alert out of work necessity.
Perhaps catching onto my perpetually high stress levels, YouTube and Instagram algorithms began recommending me self-care vloggers— skinny women in their late 20s, oftentimes German (?) — who sing the praises of abstaining from screens and maintaining a consistent morning routine.
Festering hatred bubbles up within me whenever I get tiny glimpses of these influencers reading books, going on morning runs, meditating and enjoying other phoneless activities for hours on end. It feels silly to reminisce on college, since I was also stressed and busy then (and abhorred my physical surroundings). But I sorely miss having the ability to put my phone away and read for an hour or two, or hold a conversation without having to check my texts every five minutes.
Of course, my life isn’t that bad. I make a decent salary, live where I want to live and make money off what I write. But I had not prepared myself for the reporter’s lifestyle, in particular the constant feeling that my time isn’t my own.
I take advantage of the brief, unpredictable pauses I get from work to meet my partner or go out with friends, meaning the time set aside for solitary activities — reading, exercise, writing for pleasure — has been next to nothing.
Even more aggravating is when worried friends and acquaintances inform me that I’m being exploited. Maybe I am being exploited. What should I do about it? Every other reporter works just as hard as I do, if not more. Demanding more free time would make me look entitled in the eyes of my employer and I can’t afford to get fired while my status in this country hinges on my work.
The endless drumbeat of the news has killed my eye for beauty. It’s become increasingly difficult to recognize the good that exists in the world amid a constant influx of death and crime-related WhatsApp notifications. My capacity for critical thinking beyond simple fact-checking has also deteriorated, as I find myself flitting from one news item to the next without time to spare on books or academic articles.
But it goes without saying that reading helps to refine one’s writing. So I’ve lately been trying to convince myself that setting time aside to read, even when the subject matter bears no relation to my work, is vital to my professional success and not just spiritual wellbeing.
My hope is that this Substack will serve as a much-needed escape, where I can post my thoughts about what I’m reading (and watching, which is a once-a-month sort of activity for me) and thus keep constantly-updating news flashes from poisoning my mind. I tried to make a YouTube channel to this effect a bit ago, but quickly realized that I can’t speak coherently and figured it would be easier to type out my thoughts.
I’m not certain that I’ll be able to keep this up, and for all I know this introductory note is the last thing you’ll see from me in months. But on the off-chance that I make a habit of writing here, you can expect posts on WG Sebald’s Vertigo, Jacob Israël De Haan’s Pathologies (one of the few English translations of his works that I’ve been able to find), 15th-16th century Jewish historical writing and several other topics that bear absolutely no relation to each other.
Will try my best to keep you posted…