How to Write in a War

To write in a war is to feel.

I have so many questions and rages eager to find its place each time I open my notebook. Questions unanswerable, rages unspeakable, the blank pages stare at me for too long. What do you want from me? How can you expect me to write in a time of war?

One might think writing is the right thing to do during the war. After all, there is nothing more worthy of documentation than humankind teetering at the edge of the cliff. The universe, the alien that might pay a visit, and the new humans are all craving to read about how mankind fell. The juicy bloody truth on human nature. Yet I still have so much hesitation to put words down. Simply put, nothing written by me feels important enough right this moment, as I’m writing about a war that is not mine.

It is a weekday. I’m sitting on my couch, staring at the pages after a long nine-to-five, a few mini croissants, two beers - a typical day if I’m not writing about people dying on the other end of the world. My words are weightless compared to the shouting, the fear, the drying blood, the hunger, the crying, and the sleepless nights that my kind are bearing right this moment. People are having their homes destroyed, their food, water, and medical resources cut out, intentionally, by the powers. The powers sat together, defined “human rights”, and at some point decided that it meant nothing at all.

Weightless it is, I know I still have to write about war, as writing is the only right thing to do. I’m writing because in the past few days, I’ve seen so much detachment, disassociation, and isolation that people are creating, actively, so they can enjoy the sense of “peacefulness” and “quietness”. People, especially those living without fear, are telling others or being told that they need to protect their inner peace and mental health, and therefore can take a break from the bloody reality. “It is politics after all,” they say. “And people are allowed to be indifferent about politics” They put their phones down, meditate, and go to bed. “Personal is political” is so true, that sometimes it gets forgotten intentionally.

I refuse this type of bubble world lifestyle. I write about the war so I have to feel. I write so I’m forced to sit down with the shouting and the crying. Writing is a ritual of space-making, so important people and events have their place instead of solely occupying one of your million news feeds, a few seconds of For You page, a skippable story blended with others’ Halloween customs. I need to create a space so that me and the information I received can have solitude, so that I can truly take time to understand its weight.

What people don’t realize is that living as a collective in this space, we have to spare something for others. We yield to one another at a certain level, and that’s what binds us as a kind. We spare space with each other on a crowded bus, lend a hand when kids cry, and bring soup to the elders in the cold. We spare resources when we can, when we do not have any of hat to spare, we open ourselves to the feelings we are responsible to feel.

“It is hard to carry on an ordinary life with news like these” they said. That’s because there’s no such thing as an ordinary life. The ordinary life doesn’t exist because the ordinary self is changing constantly. I talk about Kai on my other social media platform, an unhoused person betrayed by his society. I watched him die in a way. Since then I’ve been forced to carry a piece of him with me and that changed me completely. I wrote in the essay

“Sometimes it cost us a small piece of self to ignore others’ pain, and sometimes it cost us a whole self and whole identity. we relearned ourselves and reset our values in order to ignore others’ pain and suffering. There are times that there is just no way for us, not any possible way, to ignore, to not stare into the pain of other beings.”

Is our “peace of self” worth protecting if the “self” is no longer valid? We carry the pain of others with us in order to keep walking and writing in this world without betraying the self and the others. After all, the pain and death of others should never taste like water; it should burn.

So I wrote “Please write”

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Ending tip on how to write in a war: Write whatever you want, write however you feel, but please try to use 'I' and 'me' less when you write; instead, use 'we' and 'us' more.