Everyday Canvas

On Writing - again

Prompt: Sherwood Anderson said, "I think the whole glory of writing lies in the fact that it forces us out of ourselves and into the lives of others."
Do you agree with his assessment of writing? Let's take it one step further, as a writer we step into other lives (our characters) does writing help us be more tolerant in real life or less because we look at things differently than a non-writer.

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Yes, there is that escape into other lives factor, but it is only one of the factors. I don’t know how I would look at things as a non-writer because I always wrote, one way or another, ever since I was eight.

As a writer, I look at writing as sharing or rather hugging the human inside the readers. Whether writing, especially mine, helps anyone to be more tolerant or not is not for me to say; however, through reading others’ writings, my own worldview, I hope, is becoming enhanced.

For example, I have been reading a lot on World War II and its survivors, but I am also reading about the Germans and the Japanese as soon as I find their memoirs or books that reflect their hardships during that terrible time. Whenever I do that, I search for the humanity in everyone. This, I hope, makes me feel empathy for all sides.

While writing or reading, it is a good idea, I think, to view the stories that deal with not only human but also, human and animal and human and nature. After all, this planet is the only one our species has.

Then, when we write, we are sometimes delightfully surprised to hear a voice, that certain voice of another inside us. It might be a character or something hidden in us popping up to the surface. I believe this is much more than imagination. It is a knowing we didn’t know we had.