What is writing for?
Writing has always felt at least a little indulgent. I think many of us (perhaps most of all folks who consider ourselves writers) conceive of writing as this leisurely activity, an outlet for self-expression and identity, as a way to further a profession or indulge in a hobby. And it was in this space that I struggled to write anything at all for much of these past few days.
Like so many of you, I've spent the last week alternating between feelings of anger, hopelessness and horror at the police brutality at the root of so much violence, destruction and trauma in our country.
I'm doing the stuff that feels easy. Listening to those who are the most directly impacted. Amplifying Black voices. Keeping up to date with lists of bail funds and community organizations needing the most support, directing awareness and my own personal funds towards them. Calling my representatives and local officials and demanding action.
I'm pushing myself to take on more of the things that feel harder. Which conversations with friends do I want to take on to help them center the injustice? What is my responsibility to attend a protest at this time? What are the resources and readings I need in order to educate myself, and illuminate more of my privilege?
From all this stems what feels like an endless amount of 'could' – I could continue to do any number of the things I've been doing, and more. And it's accompanied by a substantial amount of 'should' – each one a self-imposed judgement about how I am using my time, voice, body and the alternatives on each axis.
So simply writing feels like a selfishness. With so many other calls to action that feel more urgent, what use is this indulgence right now?
Then a friend shared that she too had been struggling to find purpose in the writing, and in the way that complex troubles unfurl when you see someone else trying to untangle them, I started to form an answer around how the writing could matter, in ways that we normally don't conceive of it mattering when we only frame it as artistic comfort.
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Writing as bearing witness
Writing is documentation. It does not matter if we categorize the written product as fiction, fantasy. It does not matter if the writing is good. Writing is formed in a space, in a context, and bears markings, echoes and scars from the environment around it. We don't know the future, and we don't know how our individual writings will look when and if they are looked back upon. In this way, we are observers and notetakers, paying attention to the images, voices, stories and movement around us and transcribing it into an imperfect record. It is a record nonetheless. Writing is listening and processing and putting it down for some future interpreter (maybe yourself, maybe someone else) to find.
Writing as opening
Writing expands possibility. It does not matter if we categorize the written product as non-fiction, historical. Writing about the same thing someone else has written a thousand times before still re-contextualizes it into our perspective, our time, our space. We read and watch sci-fi where futuristic technology lets us imagine into reality a wealth of tangible inventions and scientific discoveries. But we don't always have to reach so far to accomplish that opening. When we write, someone invariably experiences that thought, that lesson, that action, that concept for the first time. And when they do, they start to notice those previously-unseen nooks in their lived world, sometimes as mirrors, other times as absences. Writing creates space for "I never thought about it that way" and "I didn't know someone could do that" and "I wonder what it would be like if that happened, if that happened for me, if I made it happen."
Writing as being
Writing can be an end goal in and of itself, one that occasionally generates a byproduct, a written work. In this way, writing may also be resistance, a refusal to create for the purpose of consumption, a way to maintain a meditative practice that is solely our own. It's not necessary to write for publication, it's not necessary to write to change the world, it's not necessary to write to make new things. We don't have to write for others, we don't even have to write for ourselves. It is enough to just write. Writing can be sustenance, writing can be energy renewal, writing can be self-preservation, especially in a world that demands of us productivity, monetization and efficiency.
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The discomfort we're trying to shed right now is not something to take pain meds for. It's a symptom, not the disease. The discomfort is the acknowledgment of a reality that many of us have the privilege of being able to turn away from most of the time. For some of us, these are the only times that it feels like we can't turn away.
That's the discomfort. Nothing I can do today can unburden myself of that. I cannot throw myself into the pit and dismantle it on my own, overnight. Even if I could, the discomfort would still sit. This system of injustice is not capable of being undone by individual sacrifice alone. The story of the singular hero is a myth. We do this sustainably when we do it together.
Which also means our attention right now can be aimed at longer-term goals. We have to maintain a broader perspective. We have to do the easy and hard things today, but also know that the majority of the work is ahead of us, not behind. There is nothing we can do today that will absolve us of the responsibilities we have to each other for the coming months, years and decades.
Which means that there must exist time for the writing. Writing as the creation of history. Writing as the opening of possibility. Writing as the resistive act of simply being, stasis and standing, when other forces push us towards commodification. There is even enough space for writing as indulgence, though I am wresting myself away from a belief that writing could ever only be that.
If you're a writer, this is for you. If you're not a writer, this is also for you. Maybe it's painting, maybe it's cooking, maybe it's doing the thing that feels indulgent in its own small way like watching a reality show about flowers.
Do that. Do that with all the attention it deserves, and then re-engage. There is plenty of fight to go.
[Edit: Removed link to this after doing some reading around why this campaign is harmful. See this thread for high-level details. ] #8CantWait - a tool to see whether your city has implemented policies around use of force to decrease police violence. Not the end all be all, but a place to start TODAY.
This thread from Obama - highlighting additional city-level changes you can engage your mayor on. Local policies are important, this is where you can make a huge impact before Election Day.
List of Black-owned Restaurants in the Bay Area - find your city’s resource here.
The End of Policing - a FREE eBook that chronicles the history of law enforcement and proposes harm-reducing alternatives.
Bail Funds for Protestors - comprehensive guide to national and local bail funds
With gratitude,
Robin