Writing in Troubled Times

By Chris Jorgensen

Boy, this year has been interesting, to say the least, and here I am trying to keep track of myself and everything else around me while I funnel all of my ideas into the back of my head for later use. That being said, this time has been riddled with thoughts. Today I wanted to share something that struck me recently. Let's discuss:

Writing in Troubled Times

I want to talk about something that might be considered an old hat but is continuously shown to be timeless. I find that writing about the human condition is never going to go away or get old. While many people will point out that there are always stories out there about people just going through life, the brilliant part about it all is that there are no bounds to the stories we can tell. The unique opportunity we have as people is that we live our lives in ways that are distinctive from anyone else, all while managing to keep the same themes between each other.

People write about death, depression, making our way in the world, and we all have these experiences, but what sets it apart is the ability to write our experiences and capture the moments as we deal with them. The wonderful part about this is that genre holds no real bounds to writing in this way. For example, The Lord of the Rings was a commentary on the world after WWI, and while fantastical, it still gives us the story about the human trials and the world we live in, just under a different mask.

Humans need commentary, now more than ever. In times like these, there seems to be this outcry to hear the voices of the people, and so we need to write.

And while we have journalism, we are writers, which means that we must write about what’s going on around us. But not only that, this is a time to read. To understand. We need to be the people who are willing to be the voices of all sides. We write, so we can help educate and argue for the sides who need a voice.

Writing in these events seems to be the time to write anything and everything. The world now more than ever is at our beck and call. We are the artists and the historians. We, as writers, are in a time and world where our words matter more than ever. So write, and make your voice and word be heard.

Chris Jorgensen is a writer of the Editing Mee team. Chris is often described as an amalgamation of too many things for his own good. Writer, musician, academic, book collector, scavenger, and one of the authors of our Collective Darkness Anthology.

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