Thank you for this. For naming the deluge of chaos and its effects on the writing process. As a writer and poet, I start an essay and then stop then start then stop because it never seems to capture the next outrageous time collapsing moment. When the truth is, it’s capturing all of it, the words, the feelings, the flesh of time. These times. I feel a little more motivated to let the “unfinished” pieces speak for themselves. They have that right. 💪🏽
Many years ago, when I lived in Washington, D.C., I went to the National Theatre to see “Beyond the Fringe,” a British group that preceded Monty Python but came out of the same cauldron, I believe Cambridge University.
Alan Bennett, a well-known playwright now, was in the original group, as was Dudley Moore.
They did a skit about World War II documentaries. The leitmotif that introduced each new section was a line that went sonething like this: “And now for news of fresh disasters…” My former husband had also seen the performance before I met him. We kind of used that line throughout the entire Vietnam war period, to lighten our mood. And now I find myself waking up every morning and picking up my cellphone to look at the night’s news of fresh disasters, because that’s what life under Tangerine Palpatine is like every day! Like living in a dark comedy skit! It’s demoralizing, dehumanizing. Every single day!
So I hear where you are coming from! We are all right there with you, whether we are writers, poets, actors, or just Joe schmoes walking around in our waking nightmares. The times are beyond words a lot of the time. Just raw feeling.
Heck, that's happening to me, too, as a professor. There's always something screamingly important I want to lecture on, but as fast as I can start writing here comes the next outrage.
I agree. I recall hearing S. Bannon going on about how a constant barrage of chaos was intended to keep the public off balance so life-altering changes could take
It's an exponential darkness that grows in a myriad of patterns due to the lack of hope, primitive advanced fear, and limited self realization. It's destruction for the sake of not knowing why, as a collective species we are not that intelligent to realize what's truly important. We can, at least try to be a better version of yesterday. Awareness is a gift and super power to some. While to others it's just the way it is. Everything begins with us as we have no control over how others see, feel, acknowledge, and witness this short physical journey on this planet.
Sister DuVernay, with all of the wonderful and necessary art that you have created, the following words may be your most essential: "In a world this chaotic and wounded, an attempt itself carries its own integrity. Beginning becomes its own vow and its own defiance." These words echo and remind us of the truth in Claude McKay's "If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain;" As an Afro-Mississippian who's often asked why my wife and I remain in Mississippi, your and McKay's work and words combined with the work and words of Margaret Walker Alexander and Richard Wright are why we keep fighting.
Beautiful. Thank you for posting this, Ava DuVernay. Your body of work — especially what you did with “Caste” — is beyond profound. Beyond comparison.
I’ll read and watch whatever you create as I am hungry to know what you are seeing, thinking, feeling, sharing, and calling for.
Thanks for picking this piece back up again, and for sharing your thoughts on these (mostly) horrific and bizarre happenings.
Praying for the time these truths will be understood by enough people that we will have created a new era of justice, equity, compassion, empathy.
I hate that even after it seemed we’d turned a corner after the first T presidency, the malignant racism and white surpremacy seemed to bounce back stronger. The velocity and intensity of the rage economy doubled down.
Seems as if we have an even deeper hole to come out of now. And I know art — your art — can help evoke understanding and healing. I’ve seen it happen. So please keep starting. And picking up whatever you’re working on as you wish. Thank you for sharing this. Your light is appreciated. In fits, starts, whatever form and whenever possible. Thank you. ❤️🦋❤️
Thank you for this beautiful essay. Your thoughts are never just a drop in the bucket. We all feel like our hands are tied right now, but like you said, there is light ahead. I read musk had to stop some program on twitter that showed where the tweets were coming from, because an overwhelming majority of supposed maga accounts were from Russia, & other foreign places. So, as we’ve always known, we FAR outnumber these sick people. It’s time we act on that, out loud!
I wrote a piece once in this spirit, "The Importance of the Empathetic Imagination." The argument was that even if you fall short of really successfully putting yourself in the shoes of another, of knowing viscerally what it is like to be marginalized or poor or of a different race or class, etc., there was tremendous value in the attempt to do so, and we must not shy away from trying under the guise of thinking we'll never "get" there. As Ava says it, "the attempt itself carries its own integrity."
Thank you for putting words to how the last several months have felt. I too have found it difficult to post and write on these platforms as well. So much chaos and suffering to take in and so much at stake all at once. There is also a lot of pressure to get things right. I applaud you for taking your time and releasing your writing when the time was right. Sometimes we need time to process all that is going to bring closure to what is overwhelming. Letting the people finishing the story hit home for me. Finding inspiration in the ways that people fight back against injustice and express their agency is a great reminder to keep going and to keep putting the work in so that others may see that light is coming.
I always read the first and last paragraphs of essays when a post comes through from my fave SubStackers. Then I save the post to come back to it when I have the time and space to soak up every word…and your opening and closing statements in this piece are speaking my soul right now. Thank you for always inspiring 🙏🏾💫
Happy happy happy to read your article- because you have captured what all of us writers and artists have been going through— thank you!!— and then truly understanding where it’s leading. Btw your movie about the Central Park Five is so masterful I am in awe and gratitude. It changed me, it bit into my soul and enlightened me. Thank you for having the big heart to make it.
Bad is bad and one is not comparable to another, nor does one in any way justify another or make it less horrific.
KKK strands alone and none can compare just as the Shoah stands alone, incomparable with any other horror the human race inflicts upon itself. The Palestinian genocide stands alone. As does the Rwandan. Each needs to be addressed and treated on its own. To save one life is to save the world. The attempt to erase a part of our humanity needs direct action. To cut off a limb of our humanity is self- destruction.
Thanks, Ava for the good writing. I think there are people who are good at starting but need help from others to grab on and continue. There are also 'the closers' but the game of life is really an ongoing project (one hopes). So maybe it's ok just to be a starter sometimes as there are frustrated people out there thinking 'where do I start?'. Maybe that's all the inspiration others need to carry on. For sure we can't do this alone. Having to focus on so many blatantly wrong things is a way to keep us out of focus (that may be the plan). I think your message is clear, just keep it up. We're in this together. There's strength in numbers and our numbers are growing.
Beautifully done! You have captured this moment so incredibly well. I’m moved that you took all of those possible drafts and made them into one very coherent, and ultimately uplifting whole.
Thank you for this insightful post and brilliant serialized meditation or we can also call it mosaic essay.
I currently have 14 essays in my drafts box, waiting to be completed. Including an 11-part series. I hear you! I like long essays. I struggled with the Instagram captions types of writing. There is a place for it but it’s not for me. My essays are long because they reflect the urgency of our current reality. They don’t get a lot of attraction but I am patient. They will slowly find the right readers and I’m ok with that.
It’s hard to have confidence in writing about moment by moment events happening right in front of us. My focus has been on what I want to do and encouraging other people to be better and do better things. Not because they have to, but just because it feels good and it’s what we were born to do. You are so multi talented and beautiful and smart and strong and loving. And in every “partial” effort to comment on each of these strange aberrations of what you think should be obvious, you did a great job. I didn’t see any hate. I didn’t feel any pushback other than this is how you look at it and we are all free to look at them in our own way. This was a beautiful “long form“ essay. Well done and thank you. Cynthia,
An adopted mother of a mixed race filmmaker who is trying hard to say his own truth about a portion of this country that doesn’t feel like they want him
In my room I have a poster with a quotation from Eleanor Roosevelt: "The way to begin is to begin."
This is inspiring. Thanks, Rachel.
Thank you for this. For naming the deluge of chaos and its effects on the writing process. As a writer and poet, I start an essay and then stop then start then stop because it never seems to capture the next outrageous time collapsing moment. When the truth is, it’s capturing all of it, the words, the feelings, the flesh of time. These times. I feel a little more motivated to let the “unfinished” pieces speak for themselves. They have that right. 💪🏽
Many years ago, when I lived in Washington, D.C., I went to the National Theatre to see “Beyond the Fringe,” a British group that preceded Monty Python but came out of the same cauldron, I believe Cambridge University.
Alan Bennett, a well-known playwright now, was in the original group, as was Dudley Moore.
They did a skit about World War II documentaries. The leitmotif that introduced each new section was a line that went sonething like this: “And now for news of fresh disasters…” My former husband had also seen the performance before I met him. We kind of used that line throughout the entire Vietnam war period, to lighten our mood. And now I find myself waking up every morning and picking up my cellphone to look at the night’s news of fresh disasters, because that’s what life under Tangerine Palpatine is like every day! Like living in a dark comedy skit! It’s demoralizing, dehumanizing. Every single day!
So I hear where you are coming from! We are all right there with you, whether we are writers, poets, actors, or just Joe schmoes walking around in our waking nightmares. The times are beyond words a lot of the time. Just raw feeling.
Saralyn, “And now for news of fresh disasters…” What a well-written and interesting comment.
Aw shucks! Thanks.
Heck, that's happening to me, too, as a professor. There's always something screamingly important I want to lecture on, but as fast as I can start writing here comes the next outrage.
I think it’s a deliberate ploy to keep everyone off balance. The outrages come so fast that no one has time to recover. Shock and awe!
I agree. I recall hearing S. Bannon going on about how a constant barrage of chaos was intended to keep the public off balance so life-altering changes could take
place in plain sight.
Yeah, flooding the zone. It's working.
Absolutely!
It's an exponential darkness that grows in a myriad of patterns due to the lack of hope, primitive advanced fear, and limited self realization. It's destruction for the sake of not knowing why, as a collective species we are not that intelligent to realize what's truly important. We can, at least try to be a better version of yesterday. Awareness is a gift and super power to some. While to others it's just the way it is. Everything begins with us as we have no control over how others see, feel, acknowledge, and witness this short physical journey on this planet.
“Deluge of chaos” my new favorite description
Sister DuVernay, with all of the wonderful and necessary art that you have created, the following words may be your most essential: "In a world this chaotic and wounded, an attempt itself carries its own integrity. Beginning becomes its own vow and its own defiance." These words echo and remind us of the truth in Claude McKay's "If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain;" As an Afro-Mississippian who's often asked why my wife and I remain in Mississippi, your and McKay's work and words combined with the work and words of Margaret Walker Alexander and Richard Wright are why we keep fighting.
🫶🏾
Beautiful. Thank you for posting this, Ava DuVernay. Your body of work — especially what you did with “Caste” — is beyond profound. Beyond comparison.
I’ll read and watch whatever you create as I am hungry to know what you are seeing, thinking, feeling, sharing, and calling for.
Thanks for picking this piece back up again, and for sharing your thoughts on these (mostly) horrific and bizarre happenings.
Praying for the time these truths will be understood by enough people that we will have created a new era of justice, equity, compassion, empathy.
I hate that even after it seemed we’d turned a corner after the first T presidency, the malignant racism and white surpremacy seemed to bounce back stronger. The velocity and intensity of the rage economy doubled down.
Seems as if we have an even deeper hole to come out of now. And I know art — your art — can help evoke understanding and healing. I’ve seen it happen. So please keep starting. And picking up whatever you’re working on as you wish. Thank you for sharing this. Your light is appreciated. In fits, starts, whatever form and whenever possible. Thank you. ❤️🦋❤️
Thank you for this beautiful essay. Your thoughts are never just a drop in the bucket. We all feel like our hands are tied right now, but like you said, there is light ahead. I read musk had to stop some program on twitter that showed where the tweets were coming from, because an overwhelming majority of supposed maga accounts were from Russia, & other foreign places. So, as we’ve always known, we FAR outnumber these sick people. It’s time we act on that, out loud!
I wrote a piece once in this spirit, "The Importance of the Empathetic Imagination." The argument was that even if you fall short of really successfully putting yourself in the shoes of another, of knowing viscerally what it is like to be marginalized or poor or of a different race or class, etc., there was tremendous value in the attempt to do so, and we must not shy away from trying under the guise of thinking we'll never "get" there. As Ava says it, "the attempt itself carries its own integrity."
The fact that you sit down and write *at all* is the victory. They will not silence us. They will not stop us. Thanks for showing the way.
Thank you for putting words to how the last several months have felt. I too have found it difficult to post and write on these platforms as well. So much chaos and suffering to take in and so much at stake all at once. There is also a lot of pressure to get things right. I applaud you for taking your time and releasing your writing when the time was right. Sometimes we need time to process all that is going to bring closure to what is overwhelming. Letting the people finishing the story hit home for me. Finding inspiration in the ways that people fight back against injustice and express their agency is a great reminder to keep going and to keep putting the work in so that others may see that light is coming.
Thanks a lot, Lauren.
Always!
I always read the first and last paragraphs of essays when a post comes through from my fave SubStackers. Then I save the post to come back to it when I have the time and space to soak up every word…and your opening and closing statements in this piece are speaking my soul right now. Thank you for always inspiring 🙏🏾💫
You have a lovely first name that meshes perfectly with DuVernay.
Happy happy happy to read your article- because you have captured what all of us writers and artists have been going through— thank you!!— and then truly understanding where it’s leading. Btw your movie about the Central Park Five is so masterful I am in awe and gratitude. It changed me, it bit into my soul and enlightened me. Thank you for having the big heart to make it.
💕
Bad is bad and one is not comparable to another, nor does one in any way justify another or make it less horrific.
KKK strands alone and none can compare just as the Shoah stands alone, incomparable with any other horror the human race inflicts upon itself. The Palestinian genocide stands alone. As does the Rwandan. Each needs to be addressed and treated on its own. To save one life is to save the world. The attempt to erase a part of our humanity needs direct action. To cut off a limb of our humanity is self- destruction.
Wise words.
Thanks, Ava for the good writing. I think there are people who are good at starting but need help from others to grab on and continue. There are also 'the closers' but the game of life is really an ongoing project (one hopes). So maybe it's ok just to be a starter sometimes as there are frustrated people out there thinking 'where do I start?'. Maybe that's all the inspiration others need to carry on. For sure we can't do this alone. Having to focus on so many blatantly wrong things is a way to keep us out of focus (that may be the plan). I think your message is clear, just keep it up. We're in this together. There's strength in numbers and our numbers are growing.
Amen to that!
This. Thank you for saying this. 🙏
Beautifully done! You have captured this moment so incredibly well. I’m moved that you took all of those possible drafts and made them into one very coherent, and ultimately uplifting whole.
Thanks, Carolyn. Sometimes scraps can become a quilt. 🤷🏽♀️
Yes!!!
You said, "The new stories were coming so fast I couldn't focus." Well, you've left a helluva focus here! Carry on!
Thank you for this insightful post and brilliant serialized meditation or we can also call it mosaic essay.
I currently have 14 essays in my drafts box, waiting to be completed. Including an 11-part series. I hear you! I like long essays. I struggled with the Instagram captions types of writing. There is a place for it but it’s not for me. My essays are long because they reflect the urgency of our current reality. They don’t get a lot of attraction but I am patient. They will slowly find the right readers and I’m ok with that.
Now subscribed. Let’s keep going!
Thank you so much for encouragement. We will prevail!
I have a similar problem…
This was so worth the wait. Thank you, Ava.
It’s hard to have confidence in writing about moment by moment events happening right in front of us. My focus has been on what I want to do and encouraging other people to be better and do better things. Not because they have to, but just because it feels good and it’s what we were born to do. You are so multi talented and beautiful and smart and strong and loving. And in every “partial” effort to comment on each of these strange aberrations of what you think should be obvious, you did a great job. I didn’t see any hate. I didn’t feel any pushback other than this is how you look at it and we are all free to look at them in our own way. This was a beautiful “long form“ essay. Well done and thank you. Cynthia,
An adopted mother of a mixed race filmmaker who is trying hard to say his own truth about a portion of this country that doesn’t feel like they want him
Thank you, Cynthia. And cheers to your filmmaking child. We need all hands on deck. I hope they keep going. 👊🏾
So powerful, Ava. Thank you for all of this.
I definitely needed this motivation today… The message is JUST WRITE❣️✍️