I write because the world is an amazing, spectacular, wondrous place, but that doesn’t mean our lives are.
Hopefully our lives or some long phases of them are spectacular and wondrous, but rare is the person whose whole life is that way. And even in the good, long stretches of pleasant times, most of us have lapses into doubt about the value of it all - either due to losing that value or because we are so wrapped up in the hubbub and the race and the kids’ schedules that we forget to appreciate what’s around us and dip our toes into the reflecting pool of life.
We need, all of us, reminders of why we and the cosmos are miracles. We need both spyglass and mirror to see life’s depths, hidden places, wide open constellations, its indefatigable truths and the part we play in defending or abandoning them. Such is the conversation of existence, first put to sustained record by the cave people who painted on walls. Every generation since has expanded upon and carried that conversation forward using every language known to sentient life. Its voice is in the farmers’ hands, educated in all the methods of their craft passed down since the planting of the first crop. Its voice is in the architecture we walk through, the medicines we make, the literal words we speak, the dances we dance, and the music - oh the music! Whoever has invested years of their life trying to invent a universal language missed a glaring fact: one has existed from the very beginning. We all understand music. And no matter our linguistics, we can all recognize the messages it portrays - its wrath, its fear, its joy, its sorrow, its love.
If you do not read, whether for lack of interest or time, my god at least listen to music. And don’t forget instrumental music with no lyrics to tell you what to think and feel. A good score can ignite you and give you the mental fortitude to face any challenge. My personal favorite at the time of this writing is “Run Free” by Hans Zimmer from the animated film “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.” Play it from the beginning, but give it time to build the launch pad; the inspiration rocket launches at minute 2:10. With most instrumental scores you’re lucky to make it to Neptune. In “Run Free,” Zimmer grabs hold of you and doesn’t let go until you’ve seen so many nebulae and solar systems that you can barely remember what planet you’re from. At marker 4:37 you might think the ship is eyeing the landing field, but then suddenly you bank hard to port and soar alongside a flock of comets. Blast “Run Free” in your car while you fly at full legal speed down an open stretch of interstate, and then try to tell me you can’t do anything you set your mind to.
Music is my favorite language in the Cosmic Conversation. My mind may fantasize about being a film producer or theme park designer so I can tell stories in broader mediums, but my soul fantasizes about being a composer. They don’t even need a story or a subject to tap into the Conversation. All they need is sound.
I cannot play an instrument or hold a tune or tell you what a treble or an octave are, let alone wrought music out of thin air. What I can do is write a paragraph that is greater than the sum of its parts. I can string together a collection of words to make a reader see a subject in a new light or escape their harsh or humdrum reality for a little while. Or, if I’m really bare and honest on the page, I can make the right reader, the reader who needed to hear it, feel less alone. That is the highest purpose of the Conversation. We each may be rowing our particular, unique boat, but the reason a line from a hundred-year-old book can make you feel like it was written just for you is because we’re all trying to navigate the uncertain waters of being human.
I write because other writers wrote for me. I may never meet them and they may even be long dead, but they tossed me a rope when I needed it most. Sometimes a rope appeared when I didn’t know I needed one. If I can, then I owe it to those writers and to other readers like me, to weave more rope. To shine a light into the dark and quiet of life lived in doubt, detachment, or indifference. To remind those who need reminded why we and the cosmos are miracles. Through honesty and imagination, writing and reading can make even the simplest, most modest life feel as though it is lived beyond the stars.
I fear I live in a time when the wonder of our world is being glossed over, painted with an apathetic brush to hide from us our birthright: a view, even from the poorest hovel, of what is possible. In my childhood, that view was expansive and vibrant. It felt as though society had agreed to invest in dreams beyond what came before us - in living lives filled with compassion and carrying the conversation of existence beyond the stars, both metaphorically and literally. Leaders spoke of the promise of tomorrow, not the doom of today.
But now it feels like society has divested from all of those promises and left us to our own devices and our own individual budgets for building tomorrow. Individually, we don’t all have the ‘beyond the stars’ scope and budget of NASA. Even NASA no longer has the ‘beyond the stars’ budget of NASA. In this regard especially, I feel sorry for kids these days. When I was a kid, We the People owned exploration, inspiration, and possibility. Now we have surrendered those immense powers and future-building tools to a few elite humans. And like the self-important king from whom the authors of “We the People” once disbanded, those few elites hold our dreams of what is possible in the grip of their perverse and self-centric whims.
I say to hell with all of that. And I spit in the eye of anyone who claims the apex of our society is behind us. If we are in decline, it is because their small minds and closed eyes have halted and reversed our ascent - our growth from what is to what is possible. The cure for small minds is to expand them. For closed eyes, to open them. It seems to me we are in an age when the social We is in need of a rope. A rope to pull itself up out of fear and apathy.
I cannot compose music, design inspiring buildings, colonize the moon, or land on Mars. But I can write. I can engage in the Conversation. If I don’t, I will feel as though I have betrayed all the yesterdays that made me possible and all the tomorrows that I can help create.
That is why I write.
I write for the boy who knows there is a better world than the hateful one his village showed him. He knows that better world exists because he read about it in a book somewhere.
I write for the wife so poorly treated by her husband that she has lost all faith in herself, in her strength and her singular value.
I write for the man who wants more than the hobbies and habits his society expects of him.
I write for the poor kid who has holes in his shoes and hunger in his belly, but he still has dreams and hopes and eagerness for his tomorrow because he has a key to all the wonders and promise the world has to offer: he has a library card.
I write for the misfit who feels they don’t belong and for the popular kid who wishes they could just be their true selves.
I write for the A student and the F student and all of them in between.
I write for the parent who reads to their kids at night.
I write for the kid who wishes their parent would read to them at night.
I write for the caveman who felt all of life’s wonder but didn’t have the benefit of papyrus and ink to write it down.
I write for the child first learning to read and for the 90-year-old revisiting their favorite childhood story, because they remember what it felt like when they read it for the very first time.
I write for the cancer patient who needs to see what shelters others built in order to survive the storm.
I write for anyone who is scared and tired and wants the world and its future to be bright again.
I write for me.
I write for me when I was seven and believed in magic.
I write for me when I was sixteen and feared the people around me.
I write for me when I was thirty-two and didn’t know if I’d survive my diagnosis.
I write for me when I read this tomorrow. When I need to be reminded why we and the cosmos are miracles. I know I will need to be reminded. I know that I, like all of you, will need to be reminded again and again and again.