I recently watched a show on HBOmax called The Newsroom. The premise, more or less, is that a news anchor and an executive producer get fed up with the infotainment aspect of modern news shows and the impetus of ratings and views, and they decide to create a news show that offers real news and hard facts—only that which is helpful to voters and the general public. It’s an excellent show and I highly recommend it for the quality, but in the weeks since I started it, it’s become one of those shows that won’t leave me alone.
Not only has this show called into question what I value—is there any cause in my life that I care enough about to chase despite consequences and opposition?—but it has also renewed my burning desire for truth. Perhaps “burning” is the wrong word here, because I’m not sending angry emails to editors or even attempting to play in the sphere of information dissemination anymore, but it’s the kind of desire that sticks in your throat and makes your fingers tingle with the need to do something, anything, even if you don’t know what you can do. The kind that nags at every thought, saying, Is this true? Does this matter?
A friend of mine once went on a kick about the difference between true and True. Lowercase true, they said, was just a fact. The sky is blue. Water is wet. I’m hungry. Uppercase True, on the other hand, was an inalienable moral certainty, a feeling that strikes the right chord, something authentic, genuine, right. Uppercase True is a Jack Kerouac poem that can’t be parsed line by line to connect with reality but when put all together introduces you to a piece of yourself you didn’t know existed.
Lowercase truth matters deeply to me. I want everyone to make informed decisions, and I think anyone who intentionally spreads misinformation should be banned from the internet and from civilized society. But as a writer of fiction with no desire to go anywhere near political journalism, I’ve come to realize that I am, for all intents and purposes, powerless when it comes to lowercase truth about anything that matters. I will, of course, continue to seek out and share truth where I can, but my voice is small and ineffectual in the sea of information available at our fingertips, and I honestly don’t think I would want it to be otherwise. People don’t want to hear hard truths, but they’re offended when they aren’t told, too.
Which leaves me with uppercase Truth… and a deep inferiority complex. I was talking with a friend the other day about the paradox of profundity, that if I’m able to understand and explain something, it must not be profound enough to be worth saying, and yet all I want is to say profound and interesting things. I know cognitively that even my favorite authors produced a decent amount of work that was just meh, and that’s only what was published. Who knows what stacks of unpublished materials are festering somewhere for their lack of profundity? And yet, like all artists, I can’t help but compare my first drafts to The Picture of Dorian Gray and wonder why I’m not as interesting nor as witty. Even if I ever get there, I doubt I’ll recognize it, because my work will always sound like me.
That is why I started this blog, which may or may not be a terrible idea.
(It was initially supposed to be an email newsletter, but according to anti-spam laws, newsletters need to have physical mailing addresses attached, and there’s not a chance I’m broadcasting where I live to crazies on the internet.)
I was encouraged by a friend to just get over myself, to embrace the imperfection, and to messily work my way toward the person I want to be instead of waiting until everything is perfect and dying before I ever get there. So welcome to the process. Welcome to my small attempt at Truth. I might occasionally be profound. I might recommend a few things you’ll enjoy. I’ll definitely share things I’ve been working on, because if you’re subscribing to my thoughts, well, that kind of comes with the territory. But mostly I hope that I can inspire at least one person to chase your own passions and creativity and embrace Truth in whatever way it shows itself to you.
And also you should totally watch The Newsroom, because it was great.
Stay excellent,
Kristen
Since I mentioned Jack Kerouac earlier, here’s a quote from a poem of his that I love, titled “How to Meditate”:
with joy you realize for the first time
"Thinking's just like not thinking —
So I don't have to think
any
more"
This poem appears in Scattered Poems, from City Light Books, which I highly recommend. One of my favorite books of poetry.
A few friends and I host a podcast about tropes in fiction, mostly for writers but also for anyone who enjoys stories. Here’s our first episode, about the Chosen One and the Hero’s Journey and the basics of storytelling. Here’s our most recent, about writing characters who are Enneagram Type 4s. And here’s one I’m plugging just because it was a lot of fun, about the differences between Tolkien’s elves and Santa’s elves and YA faeries:
I recently read a nonfiction book by the great George Saunders called A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, which looks at a few Russian short stories and discusses how and why they work. It’s one of the best books on writing craft I’ve ever read, and I highly recommend it if you write anything, even if it’s not fiction.
The audiobook is outstanding, too.
My friend Caylie is a rad human who makes rad art and is taking the year off social media, because she’s ascended to the next level of humanity. She was the one who inspired me to start this in the first place, and you should check out her art and subscribe to her newsletter and fangirl over photos of her dog with me.
In an attempt to be a positive presence on the internet, I recently rewrote this article about the concept of show, don’t tell, taking out examples from published books and replacing them with ones I created, and I think it’s significantly better now.
Featured image by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash
Earthbound, But Aspiring 