Mundane, Humane, Insane Humans
From A Fellow Human, Charisse Bare
I have not always been fond of writing. Perhaps, it was due to the stress from unanswered or hurried essays as a convinced eleven-year-old book-smart. Or, the time-constrained activities involving words to which I never quite fully expressed myself.
It was a tedious task I wanted to get over with as swiftly as possible until it wasn’t.
Until I came across topics that interested me. Until I found myself thrilled with every other silly writing prompt eager to immediately sit down and put everything on paper. Until I found myself arranging and rearranging my thoughts and concluding with an intangible structure in my head. Until I found myself surprised by every perfect line I wrote, convinced that I might just make my own mark in the world like all the greatest thinkers who came before me.
Senior high school came.
I was set on pursuing the STEM strand. Not because I loved maths, although I do, but for its advantages in the college entrance examinations. But my mom relentlessly bugged me as to whether it was what I truly wanted. And to say I am grateful for her is an understatement.
I changed my strand choice at the very last minute. In a flick of a switch, and a dab on the screen, I became an official humanista.
Was it the subjects it offered? Was it the career paths? Was it the glamorous meaning behind those aggrandizing five letters? I do not know. I may never know what the exact turning point was. But every moment of every day since then has been a page-turner and I have never been the same.
It was the writing courses that I looked forward to the most. Admittedly, they were no easy feat. It implored each one of us to get lost in worlds of our own making and to transport to an entirely different one as a week ends and another begins. But I loved every bit of it.
The classes taught me to take my time. A piece may range from taking three hours to three days to three weeks of my life. Ideas strike me in the middle of the afternoon in the middle of my sentences or at three o’clock in the morning at the break of my hazy sleepiness. Every piece calls for a different tending and creating, and I ought to respect that. Otherwise, all I will get is a group of words uncomfortably sitting next to each other. Even they know they were written with half a heart. Any attempt to cover it up with humongous words or paraphrasing or figurative language will be so pathetic I know I will pass it and never let it see the light of day again.
The classes taught me where the line between fiction and nonfiction begins and ends, where the fibers of imagination intertwine with the fabric of reality. And where and how creativity makes every delicate detail three-dimensional. And in consideration of ethics and philosophy, it is entirely up to those who hold the pen.
As a writer of nonfiction, I am allowed to reimagine and reconstruct the scenes of my movies. I may let my clouded judgment and unclear reasoning become the very foundations of my tale. I may let my joy, my grief, my peace, and my torment vulnerably lay out there and no one will ever remotely have the right to tell me I am wrong for having them and feeling them. I may look through my most subjective lenses and magnify every occurrence and nuance and I will be entitled to my own version of events and my own rulings of decisions. Because in actuality, seven billion people experience every day in seven billion ways. And being a writer means having the opportunity to share mine.
As a writer of fiction, I am discouraged from treading the known waters and encouraged to be the first to discover signs of life in alien universes. I am to paint scenarios in all the brightest colors and vivid imagery. I am to praise the sun that keeps me warm and long for it during its coy days and curse it when its affection sometimes stings. I am to watch the raindrops gracefully slide down the windshield as my vision and days blur into one. I am to evoke the senses and appeal to the most human of emotions. I am to provoke rage and imprint love.
I am to imprint love.
What is writing, if not ? What is writing, if not the ability to encapsulate and keep a record of all the brightest and most majestic meanings of love, beauty, romance, and everything we, humans, live and die for—whether we admit it or not? But love is inseparable from excruciating pain and insurmountable grief. The classes taught me something about that, too.
The classes taught me to give it my all. To show both the beauty and the nasty. To show my scars and open wounds. To carry on with my heart that has been trampled on and hold my head so high up I would be physiologically incapable of seeing those trying to pull me down and hold me back to keep me trapped and locked away under the shadows of my unspeakable past and unimaginable hell for all eternity.
But the classmates, oh, my classmate— They taught me to be humane, too. To pray for those helpless crabs in the jar. And maybe, just maybe, there might be a twinkling star that shines so incandescently even after its passing that might just save them, that might just save us.
Because the classes taught us that seen from the perspectives of the Gods, it is all part of the plot. To erase the uphill battles is to disrespect the heavens. To end the story before its peak is to make them laugh. To live and die without having lived and died is to make a mockery out of the very universal laws established by them. Everything had to happen exactly in that chronological order that seemed random at the time. Everything had to take place in all the seemingly wrong places before we could take our place. But we are not special.
The classes taught us that we are no different than the rest. Any attempt to prove so would only amplify our fragility and insecurity. We may get a few rounds of applause in celebrating the highlights but we will get earnest and radical emotions, tears, and love in shamelessly and meticulously describing the journey. Because shedding light on our flaws does not make us weak, it makes us human.
