I had a revelation! [personal update]

I have been feeling rather down lately, struggling a lot with what I do, why I do it, and what the point of it all is.

You see, I started writing years ago because I wanted to change the world. Big ambitions, I know, I was younger then, more naive. As it turns out, changing the world is more complicated than anticipated. So far I don’t even have a book out, I have nothing with which to create that change. What’s more, I no longer know which change it is I’m seeking.

As writers, we have power; power to do good, or to do bad, but power. Limited power, though. We can seek to end the mental health stigma, to teach children it is okay to ask for help. What we cannot do is cure depression. A writer may teach a lonely little girl that the future is bright, and that she will be alright – but writing cannot stop bullying. Writing cannot stop misery, the most we can hope for is to create a temporary escape from it. Writing cannot put a stopper in death, the most we can hope for is making death less scary. Writing cannot even stop racism, the most we can hope for is making it “uncool”. Writing, I have found, cannot change the world. Even Shakespeare, who has been said to write his plays as ways of teaching his audience to think for themselves, even he was not able to prevent Trump from getting elected. So what is the point?

I know a lot of writers have a lot of different reasons for writing, and to some of you, the point might be obvious – as it used to be to me. But I’ve lost that, and I find myself drifting. I’ve been drifting for a while now, going through the motions, writing, editing, blogging, building a brand, all those things it is said you need to do in order to make it as an indie author. But I’ve been going through the motions, putting on a work cap and getting it done, and I’ve done it without knowing why. Why do I still write? Why do I still try? Well, some days the only answer I can come up with is: because I have no other skills, I barely have this skill. If I don’t write, then what am I supposed to do?

That feeling hasn’t gone away, not yet, not entirely. But I did something today, something other than just going through the motions and hoping for the best. Actually, I did the opposite of that. I let it all rest and went back to bed. I lay there for a few hours (few= five in this case), and I allowed the questions in. All these scarry questions that I have no answers for, that I have no defenses against. I let them in. And then I did something else too. I imagined I was sitting across from someone wiser than me, someone who might have the answers, and might be willing to share them.

I told him I didn’t know what I was doing anymore, or why I was doing it. I told him, “if Shakespeare couldn’t change the world, who am I to think I can?” He asked in return:

“Why do you watch Shakespeare’s plays?” That gave me pause. If my writing had to change the world, if Shakespeare’s writing had to be able to change the world, did that mean I had to read or watch his plays with that in mind? That would be boring! No one reads a book or a play under the assumption that doing so will change the world. It’d be absurd.

I originally started reading Shakespeare because I thought it would make me “cool”. I continue to read and Watch Shakespeare because he continues to change my world.

“I watch Hamlet,” I replied to my imaginary conversation partner. “Because Hamlet sees the darkest aspects of my own soul, and because he can express that which I cannot.

“I watch Henry V because that shows me that a good man may succeed, even with the odds stacked firmly against him. Henry V to me is a reminder that even outside of fairytales and happy endings, good still has a chance. He was, after all, a King like none other.

“I watch Richard III because it reminds me that if you let others define you, you shall surely lose. His mother did say to him “thou camst to earth to make the earth my hell. A grievous burden was thy birth to me” and called herself “she that might have intercepted thee, by strangling thee in her accursed womb,” (Richard III act IV scene IV) and he himself said that “I, that am rudely stampt, and want love’s majesty […] Since I cannot prove a lover, to entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain.” (Richard III, act I scene I) He got what he wanted, the crown and the kingdom, and what did it get him? His entire family gone, most by his own hand or order, the kingdom he had fought so hard for now worth no more to him than a horse, and in the end all he got was death on a bloody battlefield amongst subjects and enemies alike.”

“Then there’s your answer,” he replied.

Shakespeare taught me the life lessons I needed to learn when I needed to learn them. And I am sure he did for thousands, millions others as well, just as I am sure we did not all learn the same lessons. That, I believe, is the genius of Shakespeare. He does not teach you one lesson with one play, he teaches you. Period. Teaches you to think, to recognize, to love, to hate, to emphasize, and to understand.

So what I learned is that maybe to change to the world doesn’t mean to change the world, it means to offer change to the people in it. To offer them the change they need. I don’t need to fix the problems of the world with my pen in order to have done something with my life, in order to not have wasted my time, what I do need to do is narrow my field of vision. The world, after all, is made up of people. Focus on them, and change will come on its own. Maybe that is obvious to some, but I needed the reminder, or I needed it in a new format at least.