I wrote this piece in one sitting a few weeks ago, but I only shared it with a few close friends. It’s a bit darker than anything I’ve written before, at least in tone, but I wanted to write about something I’m incredibly passionate about: writing itself! This piece could almost be considered a sister piece to the one I published yesterday on the divine power of creativity, in that it touches on several of the same topics.
I write this intro paragraph from Tucson’s botanical gardens, where a prominently displayed butterfly-dotted monolith memorializes the many, many children who were brutally murdered in the Holocaust. A quote from Anne Frank’s diary decorates the towering monument. She was only a young girl, but she knew the power of the written word. And her words have transcended space and time to humanize folks like her to the world at large. Storytelling is more than a way to pass the time. It’s how we connect to each other and share our struggles. Anne herself may not have survived, but her words are forever immortalized as a symbol of hope.
That’s why I write. And that’s why I felt the need to share these words with you.
It is said that history is written by the victors. But the funny reality of it all is that, when you think about it, history is simply written by the writers. After all, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to record it, did it truly fall? Did the tree ever matter in the first place? Was the tree even real? Without the word “tree,” you probably wouldn’t know what I was talking about. Without words, there are no stories. And without stories, we lose our humanity.
You see, humanity is stories. Billions of them, all happening simultaneously. Every person is a story in their own right. We all have a beginning and an end, and our lives consist of the moments in between the covers of the book. Like all good plots, there will be unexpected twists and surprises. Sometimes, you don’t get the things you want. Sometimes, no amount of meticulous planning will prepare you for whatever the Great Author has penned in your pages. As an aside, that’s kind of why I’ve taken to thinking of God, whoever He (or She, or They) may be, as the “Author.” Because at the end of the day, we are all characters with a role to fill in the greater story of humanity.
So, then, if all of these things are true, what is my role in this story?
That is the question I’ve been agonizing over for years.
But I know this much — I am a writer. I was born a writer. And because of this, I have the power to define my own reality. I can put into words the things other people cannot. Some people rely on technology for these purposes, but the real story of humanity can’t be told via machine. The story is flesh and blood. The Gospel of John talks about how in the beginning of everything, there was the Word, and the Word was not only with God, but the Word was God. And the Word became flesh, and that, there, is the key. In order to disseminate His message to the world, even the Great Author had to experience humanness.
Stories are at the very heart of what it means to be human.
I’ve spent many years on this planet learning what it means to be human, and I suppose I’ll never know all of the answers. What good is it to a human to know all of the answers, anyways? Does it change the path of the earth around the sun? Will it avert the inevitability of tomorrow and the day after? More knowledge does little to quell the constant screaming feeling that we are powerless little ants in a terrarium on fire.
But we press on. And in every moment, we find those reasons to continue. Those reasons aren’t the same for every person, but they all point back to the very act of creation. We create houses to live in. We create meals for our loved ones. We create inventions to make life easier. We create children. We create relationships. We create meaning. We all want to play a little part in the sacred act of creation. We all want to write our own stories.
And me? I’m just a writer. But in a world that is moved by words, a writer is a powerful thing to be.
JESSA JOYCE 