Dear Collective Diary #33

Yeah, I Blow That Whistle, Baby

Dear Diary,

I am a whistleblower. I am no longer negotiating with that truth. I accept it. Fully. Quietly. Without apology.

I have made peace with the loneliness that comes from holding the magnetic beam of light that is truth. I have learned that truth is not a social activity. It does not gather crowds. It does not ask to be liked. It asks to be held. Steadily. Even when the hands tremble.

I would rather hold my heart out in the open and watch it be stomped and belittled than live one moment having swallowed my own knowing. I would rather be misunderstood than misaligned. I would rather grieve openly than rot silently. I spoke every ounce of truth that lived in my body, and that is the only loyalty I recognize.

Here is how this archetype lives in me:

Long before modern systems learned to punish truth-tellers, many Indigenous governance structures embedded truth-speaking directly into leadership itself. Among the Haudenosaunee, leaders were never meant to be untouchable. Clan Mothers observed conduct over time, issued warnings when behavior drifted from the collective good, and if the drift continued, removed a chief’s antlers, his authority. Not as punishment, but as correction. Power was never owned. It was borrowed.

In Pueblo societies, truth moved differently but just as deliberately. Ritual clowns revealed what could not be spoken directly. Through inversion, exaggeration, and discomfort, they exposed aberrant behavior before it calcified into collapse. The role was sanctioned. The cost was known. The function was preservation.

In intact cultures, the truth-breaker was not exiled. The truth-breaker was necessary. What we now call whistleblowing was once understood as maintenance.

I began spending time with a couple. I wanted to believe we were moving toward something expansive. A quad. A shared future. A story that felt brave and modern and full of promise. I wanted to believe it. I tried to believe it.

But truth does not wait for belief.

It surfaced in my body first. As a kind of sickness. Not fear. Recognition. Inconsistencies in behavior. A lack of consideration masked as closeness. Patterns that did not align with the values being spoken aloud. Toxicity subtle enough to excuse, but strong enough to spread. I did not see it as drama. I saw it as trajectory. I saw where it could lead if left unspoken. I saw how easily it could contaminate the sanctity of my relationship with my partner.

My partner and I spoke honestly with each other. Not in accusation, but in clarity. We named what we were witnessing. We named what felt unsafe. We named what did not belong in the future we are building together. Then we acted.

Individually, we spoke to the corresponding partners. And to the one where the truth landed most sharply, we did not offer friendship as a consolation prize. We did not posture. We did not moralize. We did not seek power.

We spoke one sentence that contained everything. You deserve better. It is time to take the courage and break this cycle. That was it.

No theatrics. No punishment. No superiority. Just truth delivered cleanly and compassionately. The kind of truth that does not rescue you, but hands you your own agency back.

I know what happens next in stories like this. I know the mythology well. I know how quickly the truth-speaker becomes the problem once the truth destabilizes a fantasy. I know the fate of Cassandra, gifted the sight and cursed to be disbelieved. Not because she was wrong, but because belief would have required responsibility.

The tragedy was never her foresight. It was the refusal of others to act.

I do not confuse my role with heroism. I understand it as function. I step forward when certainty dissolves. I speak when silence would be easier. I act when drift becomes dangerous. Not because I want to, but because my nervous system will not let me live in distortion. I cannot pretend once I see. I cannot stay once the pattern reveals itself. I cannot keep quiet to preserve comfort.

I need truth the way others need approval. I need it to breathe. I need to represent it. I need to embody its calligraphy through my choices, not just my words.

If that makes me alone, then so be it. I would rather sit in solitude with truth glowing beside me than be surrounded by the world while betraying myself.