I was driving in the car today, listening to an old Oasis B-side called ‘Acquiesce.’ Some songs make me see movies in my head and Acquiesce is one of them. Since the song is supposed to be about friendship and brotherhood, I always see the beginning of a movie, where the credits roll over a montage of pictures that show two brothers growing up together.
But then I got a little depressed and I started thinking to myself, “what do you even know about that? You’ve never had that experience.” It’s intimidating to realize that I’m attempting to put into words a story I’ve never lived … what business do I have telling that story or any other? That’s when an interesting epiphany hit me and so I’m sharing it with you:
Oftentimes, the most broken people are the ones who have the most beauty to share. We’re the prisoners, painting beautiful pictures of a world outside our walls. We can see it and we want to be a part of it, but because of our circumstances, art is as close as we will get.
As a writer, there are the stories I tell and then there are is the story I’m writing about me. Writing stories helps me write my story. I’ve always been jealous of the people who have never experienced that crisis of existentialism and I suspect many other human outliers are, too.
Like acting, writing is a chance to experience all those feelings that life never gave me an opportunity to. That’s not to say that life owed me anything. Like everyone else, I get what I get. So while I’m not saying I’m entitled to have everything I want, there are certain human experiences and emotions that I want to feel as a person. Creativity gets me there.
Writing a safety valve against bitterness and rage that might otherwise consume me. That’s why I’m saying that broken authors make beautiful stories.