The Impetus to Write

Sometimes, you have conversations that make you chuckle. Today, while talking to my wife over Signal while she’s working in Portugal, I asked what inspired her to write. “[When] something pisses me off,” she replied, which is wholly un-Canadian-like for those of us who choose to believe the frozen chosen are anything but irascible.

There’s something to be said in that response beyond the obvious acerbic acknowledgment in her words. What inspires us can take any form possible; sometimes, it takes a little vinegar to get the honey flowing.

There’s a lot that upsets the apple cart for me. I find the injustice of racist platforming and subsidization at Substack and Twitter (née X) to be galling. I see a deep discomfort in my soul around how Trump, evangelical Christians, and the GOP have platformed him as the God-appointed saviour of America. I am angry at the likes of Bill Ackman, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, the Cargills, et al. and their insistence on the destruction of workers’ rights and communities and wanton disregard for the welfare and people upon whose backs they’ve stepped over and over. I’m enraged by the refusal of CEOs and leaders to acknowledge the harm caused to their employees by socially toxic policies and legislation enacted by their “friends” in government, all for the sake of their wealth preservation. The silence from these leaders is deafening.

If I wrote constantly about these things, my feed would be filled with the same vitriol expressed by those on the opposing side of the aisle to me. Different sides of the same coin, the exact toxicity with other expressions. That’s not a place I want to be nor a community I want to imbibe in communion with. It’s part of why I take an abstracted view towards social issues; while my viewpoints are no less valid than yours, I’m weighing the rationale and reasons for where my words will be additive to constructive conversation.

I’m not perfect. If you follow me on any of my other social feeds, you’ll see I’ve got a quick enough temper regarding humanity’s moral torpidity. I’m quick to decry the ethical failures of what I see lying on the sidewalks of America and other places, but considering what I’ve written above, I’m also chastened by the words I write as well. It’s this endless dichotomy of feeling the unction to write and express while knowing it’s going out into the ether of meaninglessness. C’est la vie, as they say.

I suppose this is why I try to use my images and weave the stories of us so much. I find that the nuances and opposition are smoothed out when you realize that there’s a common foundation that we all operate from. Then, our humanity becomes divergent, ingrained in us by the oppositional forces of religion, politics, and mother’s apple pie, and we end up razor-fencing the Rio Grande because those other humans are somehow “less than” what we want them to be. But for those nascent moments, the moments between our vinegar and honey, our abuse and love, we all appreciate the stories of us.

So, I write because I have no option not to. I write because if I didn’t, I’d burn down the foundations of who I am. I write not because of an undercurrent of hate but because there’s still hope to be found, an “us” story to tell, another thread to add to the warp and weft of our social fabric. And I daresay that there are still stories you’ve yet to tell should the impetus take hold of you.

May it ever be so.