On writing after tragedies

On the morning after the latest mass shooting, one of the largest in US history, a writer and an editor met up in a chat channel to talk through their feelings of disbelief, frustration, and wanting to do something constructive. The following exchange, edited for clarity, is a record of that conversation.

WRITER: I can’t believe this has happened again.

EDITOR: What has happened? You fell in love with an Englishman, but you play the fiddle in an Irish band?

WRITER: “At least 50 dead, more than 400 hurt in concert attack.”

EDITOR: Oh yes.

Our inheritance as a society, for being tolerant of our gun-nut uncles at Thanksgiving.

. . .

A senior citizen did this

WRITER: It’s not funny.

EDITOR: It isn’t. Nor was I making fun.

WRITER: Oh, okay. Sorry.

EDITOR: No, no. No need to apologize for making sure people take this seriously.

We need more of that, in all sectors. At, say, Thanksgiving dinner, when our gun-nut relatives express their view that the limited right to bear arms means we must tolerate murderous wackjobs enjoying ready access to weapons

WRITER: Hah, agreed.

I don’t know.

My mind is reeling with, what if that, what if this; and none of the solutions seem like they could help at all. Some people want other people hurt. How do you track down that kind of psyche?

EDITOR: I suppose you can’t, really.

WRITER: So then what? This just… continues? Those types become more brazen? How do you put the brakes on the psychology of these people, to keep their derangement from erupting into violence?

EDITOR: One thing you do is ask: What is a common factor in the societies where this happens more frequently? And in those where it does not happen? And that understanding I think depends on liberal arts.

WRITER: Liberal arts?

EDITOR: Sure. “The field of study that equips us to be truly liberated.” And which aids our understanding of what humans say, and what they think, and how they feel.

Then STEM comes in to help us develop technologies for improving that understanding, helping us pare away our prejudices; and provides us with the means for intervening in those behaviors.

WRITER: . . .

What is someone like me supposed to do?

EDITOR: Honestly? Create stability and strength in your life and your household. Without those, you’re only able to pursue goals by burning up your resources and passion through mania and obsession.

Besides stability and strength, cultivate a vision for the kind of world you want to live in.

With those three legs—the strength that comes from action, and the stability that comes from being reasonable, and the vision that comes from having compassion—you’ll be able to identify and achieve goals toward that better way of being. And you’ll be better able to enable others in doing the same, along the way.

WRITER: That’s good advice. I’ll take it to heart.

EDITOR: Eh, what do I know. If there is some other way of doing things, I’d like to know it. So I ask you the same question: What is someone like me supposed to do?

WRITER: “Write about it” is my usual go-to intervention. It’s something I’ve done a lot of, to work through problems so they don’t paralyze me. Whether it’s the situation in the world—Trump, women-hating politicians, corporate bad behavior, whatever—or something closer to home, something in my emotional life, writing about it gives me a chance to work things out. And if nothing else, it lets me feel productive.

I write to solve a lot of inner conflict, but outer conflict can sometimes feel insurmountable. I tend to ask, “Is it enough just to put pen to paper?” “Do I only feel like I’m ‘placebo’ participating?”  I try to tell myself the words I write will have tangible meaning. I hope it’s true. I hope with other writers, and editors like yourself, one read through will become many and one idea may comfort many.

EDITOR: Well that’s good advice. I’d even take a more tactical view, and say look: Any time you’re writing, you’re exercising those muscles. Writing makes you a better writer, which situates you to earn more money and to have more influence. So your position, relative to these problems, is more one of strength and stability.

At the same time, writing helps you cultivate empathy. There’s more of that vision, the third part of the triad.

And, not to get big you up too much, but look: something you write might have a positive influence on others. (Or, the writing you do now, is practice for the writing you do later on, which will have that influence.) So maybe there is room for direct impact. After all, someone wrote the Bible. That’s been influential. Someone coined the turn of phrase: “This too shall pass.” The phrase, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” Any phrase that comes to mind, some writer’s invention. Someone wrote the Vedas. Someone wrote the Gettysburg Address. Someone wrote all of it, every item in the tool-kit of utterable wisdom. That’s the word-hoard. You can chip in.

Now that I’m encouraging you in this way, I feel self-conscious about not writing enough myself…

WRITER: No. In your position, you support writers. You support students. You welcome everyone in. You help people create and maintain a space for open communication. You have the resources to make people feel heard, for writers to feel like writing matters. Or if you don’t have those resources, you find them, or create them.

All of those influential sayings and songs in the word-hoard only made it out of obscurity, and into our hands, sometimes at a remove of centuries and continents, because of all the intermediaries. The translators, publishers, sponsors, patrons, critics, teachers. The people who cultivate them and spread writing and everything it contains.

Without those persons (and institutions), the labor of writing can feel fruitless. Leading to the “obsessions” mentioned earlier, the flip side of mania. That’s an opening for ideology, and the violence it can lead to.

EDITOR: Okay. I try to keep in mind that for whatever reasons I still work here, there is a way to be useful and kind to others, day by day. And that has to be a help, right?

WRITER: You know, our conversation here could possibly help others you are thinking about the same things we’re talking about.

We don’t have to include personal information; it might come off as a bit self-congratulatory. I know I’m not the only writer floundering today, feeling frustrated and irrelevant in light of events.

I don’t know. Just a thought.

EDITOR: Maybe we suck it up, then. Accept the accusation of being all about ourselves. (After all, there’s probably a good bit of truth in that.)

After all, your point about publishing this somewhere, sharing it, is that maybe it helps someone, not “maybe people will think we’re awesome.” I liked what you said about the role of the writing as a way of working through a problem. Frankly, I like what I said about writing being part of our equipment for change. So let’s do it.

WRITER: We could always take our names out, and refer to ourselves as “writer” and “editor.”

EDITOR: Could do. Or is that vanity? “We’re so interesting. We don’t want to be distracting.”

WRITER: Let’s just put it up on the Press blog. If it’s self-aggrandizing at least it’s internal.

EDITOR: Introduce it: “On the morning after the latest mass shooting, one of the largest in US history, a writer and an editor met up in a chat channel to talk through their feelings of disbelief, frustration, and wanting to do something constructive. The following exchange, edited for clarity, is a record of that conversation.” Or something along those lines.

WRITER: I like that. Nothing personal about it. We’re having the same kind of conversation I bet a lot of people are having, and have had. This kind of violence happens too often. I feel like we shouldn’t have to reevaluate the fundamental value of our profession every time it does.

EDITOR: I’ll ask them to put it on the blog.

It was good talking to you today.

WRITER: Same.