What can writers learn from day to day horrors? Whether they’re personal crises or tragedies or international abominations in the news cycle?
Like when you suddenly lose your job or a beloved family member dies. Or like when innocent Iranian children are killed by American and Israeli bombs. Children who had no choice and no voice in their sudden, horrific, violent deaths. Children who were torn apart and crushed by our tax dollars.
The only Writing Tip that came to mind on this dog walk was to try to feel things. Numbness is the enemy of creative expression and humanity writ large. Now, this might sound dangerously close to empathy, and as the assassinated monster, Charlie Kirk once said:
“I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new-age term that… does a lot of damage.”
If Charlie were alive today, I wonder which he would say does more damage: empathy or the Guided Bomb Unit and Massive Ordnance Penetrator (GBU-57 series MOP), a 30,000-pound, 20.5-foot-long “bunker buster“ bomb developed by Boeing. I guess we’ll never know.
I have been thinking about empathy in new ways though. Ever since my friend Amy Hoggart had a guest on her show What's Left? who believed empathy is meaningless without action. That idea struck me as so truthful I was surprised I hadn’t heard it before. I went on to explore the idea and learned that I was behind on the curve on this one. Hot shots like Jesus and the Dalai Lama believed the same thing: compassion is not enough—we have to act. It’s bumper sticker good.
So maybe Kirk’s quote was part of a longer conversation referencing this idea. I don’t know, and I don’t much care because:
this post is not about him, and
he said so many horrible things that, unlike a lot of commentators including Ezra Klein who said Kirk was “practicing politics the right way”, I don’t care if he occasionally said something interesting or useful. That’s a little like letting the Big Bad Wolf in the door because he gave you a great recipe for pulled pork.
As writers and humans and dog walkers, I hope we can all agree to slow down and feel something during this time of death and destruction in Iran. It’s a low bar, but I know that’s where a lot of people are at. I know I will have conversations in the coming days in which people will shake their head or sigh or curse about what’s happening. But it’s a stretch for a lot of us to access feelings - emotions - about such things.
There are real people who are terrified right now, real people weeping as real people are dying. So regardless of any benefits that come from the ouster of an authoritarian leader, I will try to honor the dead and dying by turning my empathy into action. I will move a little slower and more mindfully, I will try to be a little more kind to the people I encounter today, and as usual, I will write.
As always I love to hear from you so I encourage you to share your thoughts.
More to come…
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