Textual Healing

I’ve got a work project that’s a year-long, monthly writing gig. I’m about four months into it as of this writing. Thus far, three of the four articles I’ve written have published. Once something I’ve written is out in the world, I tend not to revisit it much.

Once something I’ve written is out in the world, I tend not to revisit it much. A pretty lie from the confident frontier of wishful thinking. In actuality, for about 24 to 72 hours, the anxious, shy child in me goes wide-eyed with terror and vulnerability—and this is true even if it’s something I don’t feel deeply invested in, so when I am invested, hang onto your hat. During that thankfully short period of post-publication lunatic time, my mind gnaws on whether anyone in the world besides me cares a whit about what I have to say. Then, much to my relief, the white noise buzz of obsessive insecurity fades out. Thereafter, I try not to think about it much—because once something I’ve written or created is shared, it’s both mine and not mine anymore, so whatever does or doesn’t come of it isn’t only or even mostly about me.

Perhaps because the project in question is a long-term gig for me, my usual publication day mental shenanigans are a little off. These days, I forget to see if last month’s piece has posted because I’m already in the throes of the next two.

I only realized my article this month was out after I got an email about it, a LinkedIn message from a total stranger who lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The woman who contacted me works at the Malaysian company whose CEO I interviewed for my March piece. She wrote to me to say how pleased she was to read the profile about her CEO, how much it inspired her, and that she’s been sharing the article with her network.

Now, of course I believe in the power of writing. That potential empathetic connection to a reader who is a total stranger and who may or may not be anything like me is a big part of why writing is my calling and what I do to make my living. On a personal level, I’m thrilled to pieces this woman was inspired by what she read. Whatever pride I feel about the writing resonating for someone else is a wonderful feeling, and I relish and celebrate such moments, but that’s not the story here.

This story isn’t a story about me or how great or special anything I did or said is. At least not to me.

The woman I interviewed is an Asian woman in her mid- to late 40s. She’s Muslim and wears a hijab, including when she goes to work. She is also a CEO of a global company. The combination of those biographical details is a big deal in the world we live in, even if it shouldn’t be. The woman who wrote me didn’t refer to any of those facts. She didn’t mention representation. Still, it wasn’t lost on me that, based on her LinkedIn profile photo, she looks like a younger version of the CEO I interviewed, including the hijab.

Representation matters. Getting to see someone who is “like me” in a visible position of prominence, respect, and authority is powerful. It telegraphs to others what should be and is possible for them, too, better than any words I could string together. I believed that long before I wrote the piece that set this unusual chain of interactions in motion, and I would have continued to believe it even if a reader from Malaysia had never written me. Her crisp, earnest message coming at me from across the globe reinforced that belief, and its veracity and volume may have been amplified by its arrival during this strange, solitary year in which human connection has been so limited and precious.

The surprise message also reminded me that diminishing our own impact is inherently human, but is as based in ego as believing our singular actions alone will make or break a community or a movement. It’s just the ego’s shadow self pouring seductive deceptions and paralyzing pestilence in our ear. My shadow self tells me that no one is listening or seeing me, not even myself. Yours may tell you you’re doing it wrong, always, and that no matter where you stand in a room or how little space you take up, you’re in the way.

What we do matters. All of us, not only some elite crew. I often doubt my own power and potential impact, partly out of insecurity and partly because it feels arrogant to presume such individual importance. What we say and do matters because it affects those in our orbit all the time—in positive ways, negative ways, and even in benign and neutral ways. And no matter who we are or what we do for work—even for those who aren’t writers or performers or artists or public figures of one sort or another—the size of our orbit is wider than we think.

The particular struggle Americans have with these ideas may stem from our cultural tendency to view all our endeavors, even the benevolent ones, as isolated achievements or failures. We Americans enjoy a Hollywood close-up. The wider lens reveals individual humanitarian acts of compassion to be part of a global human citizenry, an evolving mosaic to which we must each contribute our unique, colored glass tiles—not only because doing so is an ethical imperative, but because all future human narratives depend upon our communal engagement.

Whatever our cultural proclivities, the universe doesn’t often send us a telegram confirming that what we’re doing is being noticed, felt, received, taken in, and making a difference to someone else. Humans like telegrams. We want our sacrifices—the ones we make to do our small part in making the world a slightly better place for all of us—to carry meaning. In my experience, I have to take it on faith that who I am, the choices I make, and how I move in the world have any effect on anyone else. That faith is sturdier on some days more than others.

I don’t know why most people don’t share that they’ve been touched or moved by someone else. By observing that, I’m not scolding people for not expressing those feelings all the time when they have them. We keep some of our deepest, most profound feelings to ourselves for all sorts of reasons, sometimes good ones. Sometimes, it’s unsafe to share them. Sometimes we believe that the person who inspired us is so luminous, they cannot possibly need or be moved by outside confirmation of their influence. Sometimes, people don’t even know how affected they are by someone else in the moment, and by the time they realize it, they’re long out of touch with the person who inspired the feeling—and then are too shy or self-conscious to bridge the distance by reconnecting with its source.

Because people tend to stay silent rather than reveal such feelings, the moments when one does get that telegram are memory gems. For every person who does say something—for every stranger in Kuala Lumpur who sends a LinkedIn message to a queer, Jewish New Yorker she’ll never meet in person—many other strangers are having similar moments they don’t share.

This week’s telegram happened to have my name on it. But I wanted to share what that telegram meant with other people. People whose very lives as they choose to lead them are radical acts, and as such, are examples to all who encounter them. People who pursue self-love and authenticity and are unwavering when malevolence or injustice tries to alter their course. People who refuse to make themselves small and unsurprising where their souls are large and full of hidden depths to be explored. People whose daily jobs are comprised of boundless acts of love and compassion and sacrifice, never more so than this past year. To these people: Who you are and what you are doing is felt and noticed. Perhaps not by everyone. But by me and many others, more people than you think.

This telegram is for you.