Naomi Hsu shares about how writing can be therapeutic and create empathy.
As a high school writer in the Bay Area, I’ve doubted my commitment to writing before. In a place home to some of the world’s largest tech corporations, it’s easy to question the monetary value of a life in writing. But I often look back on an experience from sophomore year that reaffirms my commitment, reminding me of one of writing’s greatest strengths: its ability to turn pain into compassion and to use that compassion to connect us all.
Writing is all about connecting, sending a sound out into the dark and listening for what comes back. Although it sounds simple, it was only after an interview with a previously incarcerated man that I gained this understanding. In my sophomore year, I wrote a feature about the rehabilitative nature of prison art programs.
For this piece, I got to interview an incarcerated person — who’d spent 17 years in prison — about a writing program he participated in. He shared that writing allowed him to be a version of himself he once felt he couldn’t be in a place with cramped cells, soiled floors and windowless walls. He described writing as a gift that allowed him to wrestle his grief and burden — to face it, confront it and heal.
His wisdom and self-understanding stuck with me for days. Before the interview, I just saw him as another person to quote, but after, I realized the connection his pain had to myself and my classmates. We all have pain within us. But the need to heal serves as a point of connection for us all. I believe in writing for this reason — in the empathy it creates.