self-talk
I will carve out a place
to face
myself, I need a rhythm and a reason just to
trace my cells
to keep track
of all the ways that I have
become my own
my being, my person,
to start to call this skin "home"
I will challenge the lies
I will fight back the tide
I will look in the mirror and I will not be denied
If it's this figure, then I figure
"leave the bad thoughts behind;
all the persecuting bullies
were just words in your mind"
sympathy >
The moment you start, you begin to learn.
The first time you write about something you’ve never experienced, you’ll get it wrong. And the next. And the next. But this is only “wrong“ in the sense of “incorrect for someone else”, for no two people experience something in identical fashion. Sure, there are factual mistakes, of the historical or non-fictional breed - those are easily remedied with research and study. But experience is versatile.
If you cannot learn from your own experience, you can learn from that of another. An author does not need to empathize with his character; merely to sympathize with him, and to stir sympathy in the heart of the reader.
You may never write as well on the subject as someone who has experienced it themselves.
That in no way negates the need to write about it. A reader feels the deepest sense of keening and ownership when he can say, “I understand, I have been there, I have seen this, I have felt this.” Not all readers are authors; should they be derived of that experience, because he who held the pen didn’t dare venture into new territory?
We should always be educating ourselves. Learning more, seeking the new, wanting to grow and understand and experience.
If you would write on something you do not know, talk to those who have known it.
A Poor Comparison
Believing in the absolute sovereignty and supremacy of God... nothing. He loves His children; He will provide everything I need. Everything on earth that I love, everything considered worth missing, is only a watered-down version of the majesty that God's new heaven and earth will contain.
Revelation 21 continues on to say in verse 4, "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
How could anything here on earth compare to a paradise like that?
The Necessity of Grey Areas
Some people say that history is written by the victors. That history is written from only one point of view, a radical right-wing point of view. I cannot help thinking that, as censorship and a shrinking freedom of speech continue to infiltrate Western Civilization, we are moving towards a future that is written by the other end of the spectrum, the radical left, a bastardized and extremist version of the values the left originally held.
Outspoken defectors from North Korea, such as Yeonmi Park, are pointing out the growing similarities between the culture they escaped from and the culture they've escaped to. A dictatorship doesn't emerge overnight; it grows slowly, playing on a society's obliviousness. It starts with the seemingly small things, taking things inch by inch, until suddenly people wake up and realize that miles have been stolen.
What happened to the idea of simply not partaking in the things that offend us, removing ourselves from situations we disagree with? What happened to honest and open debate? Every day, our culture progresses further and further toward a dystopian system in which, if you do not say the right thing, you are a danger to society and should be locked up or put down. Room for differences grows ever smaller. Western Civ boasts a policy of acceptance, freedom to be whatever and believe whatever - but in truth, lines are being drawn in cement rather than sand. Personal choices must adhere to the stance of the media and the represented majority (which is not the same as the statistical majority).
I'm conservative-leaning in my politics, and a Christian. There are people who think my beliefs are wrong. There are people who think my beliefs are horribly misguided. There are people who think my beliefs are harmful, to myself and to others.
Typically, the people who believe those things are also those who I believe to be wrong, misguided, and to hold harmful views.
So if we both believe this about each other, what do we do? Do we condemn one party and uplift the other? Do we censor and restrict one party until it either collapses in on itself or - perhaps inevitably - civil war breaks out?
People of different views have been living on this planet for thousands of years. Looking at history, we can see what happened when differences were treated with hostility rather than tolerance: murder, torture, genocide, etc. Tyranny abounds when one stance is determined "right" and the other "wrong".
"But is there no standard to which everyone must be held? Should we tolerate any and everything? How do we agree on what is morally correct if we tolerate so many different beliefs?"
It's debatable if anyone has a perfect answer to those questions. Statistically speaking, however, nearly every religion/philosophy agrees that particular acts are ethically wrong: murder, rape, theft, lying, breaking promises. There is some black and white.
But grey areas exist, and we must keep room for them, or we damn ourselves to a future in which history repeats itself over, and over, and over again.