Vacation week

I don't have anything to write about this week.

I don’t have anything particular ideas to write about this week—probably because I saved my weekly post for the last minute this Wednesday. I have to challenge myself to write something this week, though; that was the purpose of making a Substack account in the first place.

My mom suggested writing about the beauty of the snow we’ve had in New England this week, and that’s a brilliant idea. I don’t think I have the time tonight to give it the nuance it deserves (I’m trying to go to bed earlier and I want to watch an episode of The Wire before I do). Seeing as there’s more snow predicted this weekend, I’ll probably use that idea next week.

One shower thought I had tonight was how much writing—my writing—matters when it feels like the world at large has especially been falling apart for the last 6? 10? 25? forever? Plenty of talented writers on Substack have already addressed this struggle better than I could. This essay by leonor is one of my favorites.

Something I want to add, though, is that—though I debate it internally a lot lately—writing definitely does matter. Not just because, as we’re taught in school, books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin or The Jungle did indeed change the United States in significant ways.

It also matters because something like Trainspotting really helped me make sense of why it felt like the world had gone crazy when I was 20 and even gave me the language to explain to myself what my stance was on certain issues. Someone sat down and wrote that when no one else knew of it, or thought it mattered, just like people sat down and wrote The Wire long before anyone wanted to watch it—the show makes the world make just a little more sense, or at least puts things I’ve experienced and observed about the world as I know it into a damn compelling story.

(In addition to the criminally underrated acting on The Wire from stunning talents like Larry Gillard Jr. who plays D’Angelo Barksdale or Jamie Hector who portrays Marlo Stanfield, it is really the integrity and accuracy of the writing that makes it my current winner of my Best Show I’ve Ever seen award.)

That being said, I of course don’t believe you should form all your opinions and get all your information from TV, movies, books, and other forms of entertainment. Media consumption being your only hobby leads to a very dark life, I imagine, because it will never fill the void of real connection.

However, every story matters on a small scale at least, because something you write will resonate with someone, even if it’s your friend you already talk to every day. Even when that doesn’t happen, it at least frees the writer’s spirit just a little bit, that act of creation. Someone is touched by, stirred by, saved by, or challenged by every piece of writing somehow, and I believe this world will always need all the genuinely caring people who want to do the right by others that we can get.

In spite of all the noise, the despair, the existential crises everywhere, writing matters.

Here’s the music video for Kiss of Life because I listened to it twice in a row while writing.