I still have to come to terms that the world isn’t a creative writing class.

I could be completely myself without fear, knowing that I’m somehow understood even when my writing is vague, even when reading between the lines still can’t get a reader to know what I felt and thought when I wrote them.

I wish the whole world could be a creative writing class.

Compassion for thoughts in words in print.  Taking a great deal of time to contemplate what the speaker goes through.  A community in a classroom working very hard to understand what isn’t said, what the words actually written represent.  There’s an understanding that everyone is human but that there are different brands of human.  The same question on what a human is is what’s explored in a creative writing class.  It’s a like a small world where all is welcome.  Every text is given a chance to be considered.  The rule is that every text is treated fairly.  Yes, there are favorites in the classroom, some competition among the writers but the point is that the human is considered.  Even when there are words that are hard to read, hard to interpret or when the style is criticized, there’s time taken to feel that the words are relevant somehow in our lives, in wider society.  There’s even a sort of meditation practiced as everyone in the room apply the words in their lives for a moment, knowing the potential to be what the words describe.  There’s an openness to explanations.  All is calm – usually.

The world isn’t a creative writing class.  It’s the other extreme.  There are miniscule pieces  (or shards) of a creative writing class out in the real world but there’s a lot more effort in searching for them.  Humanity should be first and foremost in everyone’s minds but, no, it’s not, it’s survival, financial security (or the goal of getting that), owning an asset or two, looking good, material goods, a fast-paced job that leads to materialistic wealth that come first.  Human exploration isn’t a priority as is evident in wide society.  Even many people in small towns, in remote locations long to live in cities, or long to get as much as they can to show that they are financially strong because life is too hard to even think about reaching a person’s core and analyzing it in order to attain peace or for peace to be planted and blossom.

The world isn’t structured and run like a creative writing class where the human soul is taken seriously, where the soul is more valuable than what money the physical human is able to bring in.

About 11 years after I graduated university and I still wish this impossible wish that the world were a creative writing class.

I don’t mean to be stubborn, to be uncooperative.

I simply like studying the human side of humans.

Debbie Chow