Writing Through Personal and Global Pain

the world is burning. how can we possibly write?

UPDATE: As I was preparing this piece for publication, it broke that a new ceasefire seems to be brokered within the hour. Here is a quote from the Guardian:

The new proposal, presented by Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, involves a 60-day truce, potentially extendable to 70 days, Agence-France-Presse reports, citing sources close to the negotiations.

It also involves the release of 10 living hostages and nine bodies in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during the first week, followed by a second exchange of the same number of living and dead hostages during the second week, AFP reports.

Hamas had agreed last week to two exchanges on the same terms, but one during the first week of the truce and the other during the final week, sources told the news agency.

There's a particular heaviness that weighs deep into your bones when depression meets global awareness—when the effort of taking a shower exists in the same mental space as children starving and burning alive in Gaza, when your own scattered mind, wind-blown, must somehow coexist with the knowledge that trucks of supplies had sat waiting at borders for too many days, forbidden entry by men who hold power over life and death. (Since then, a tentative Israeli aid program allowing food and supplies to enter has begun; the UN and other aid organizations do not stand with this new organization, calling their efforts a “drop in the ocean” after the area has been brought to the brink of famine.)

I write because it’s what I do best, and Reasons for Living is where I share my most personal, thoughtful work—the kind of essays that don’t fit anywhere else. If you enjoy what I write, I’d love for you to become a paid subscriber.

Paid subscribers get two exclusive essays per month and other bonus things that I think of in the middle of the nighjt.

Your support doesn’t just help sustain this newsletter; it helps sustain me as a writer and artist who is physically and psychologically unable to work at a traditional job.

If Reasons for Living has moved you, challenged you, or given you something to hold onto, I hope you’ll consider subscribing. If a paid subscription isn’t possible, a free one is just as appreciated. Also: if you’re unable to afford a subscription due to financial constraints, please email me at info@esmewang.com and I’ll comp you a paid subscription.

Either way, I’m grateful you’re here.

I write this from inside my own weird heaviness, which I've come to call "wet sand days"—those times when depression fills every inch of your body and mind, making everything feel monumental. I have to remind myself to breathe. Appetite gone, I’m subsisting again on too-sweet protein shakes. The psychiatrist says I've reached the maximum dosages of my various pills, so all I can do is wait three more weeks to see if anything improves.

In the meantime, there is this: the weight of personal limitation meeting the weight of witnessing injustice, and somehow, the aching need to keep creating anyway.

If you're reading this as someone who cares deeply about the world while also struggling with your own limitations—whether they're depression, chronic illness, caregiving responsibilities, or simply the overwhelm of being human in difficult times—you're not alone in this paradox. The question isn't whether we should feel both our personal struggles and global pain simultaneously. We do. The question is how we continue to create meaningful work from within this complex reality.

The Paradox of Scale

When depression settles in like wet sand, everything becomes a matter of scale and perspective. Taking a shower requires the same monumental effort that changing the world demands, yet we know these things exist in hugely different spheres of influence. This isn't comparison and it isn’t diminishment—it's recognition of how our internal experience shapes our relationship to external reality.

I find myself wondering: does the effort of taking a shower while depressed weigh more or less on me than the thought of supplies being kept from entering Gaza weigh on the men making those decisions? Is it a painful decision for them at all? When I ask this, I am posing an impossible question about the intricacies of personal and global pain. The language around such decision-makers centers around evil. I’ve heard them called monsters; I don’t know how I feel about evil. What is evil is the deaths of so many while nothing—and I don’t think all of the social media stuff, as well-meaning as it is, is changing that much unless it’s linked to action—happens. No giant effort is taking place to end the suffering as far as I know. I am also aware that I am not an expert on the conflict, and I don’t pretend to be one.

I do know that I am against what is occurring presently—and that is part of the problem. We are told things and then we are told that what we’ve been told is wrong. On social media, one person says this inflammatory thing, and then someone replies in an equally inflammatory manner. Misinformation makes few sources trustworthy. Nothing moves. People continue to die.

The weight of witness—knowing about suffering we cannot directly alleviate—compounds personal struggles. Yet this very awareness, this capacity to hold multiple realities simultaneously, has to take its place in our most important creative work.

Suleika Jaouad

calls it “creative alchemy.” It’s one of the most beautiful phrases I’ve ever heard.

Creative Work as Both Burden and Lifeline

During my recent return from Utah, where I attended a retreat for women who have experienced childhood sexual abuse (others call such places "trauma camp"), I was reminded that creative work serves a dual purpose in our lives. It is both the thing we must do—our responsibility to our art, our business, our calling—and the therapeutic thing that can anchor us when everything else feels impossible.

The retreat experience sits in my chest now alongside everything else: the eSIMs I've donated, the contributions to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, the awareness that individual actions feel small against the scale of systemic injustice. Yet I'm planning to write a longer piece about the experience of so-called trauma camp, to research and document and share what happens in these places where there is no cell service, no WiFi, and you’re shuttled out into the middle of nowhere to face your most nightmarish pains. Because this is what we do—we transform our witness into words into something that might serve others. And by the way—if you’re interested in following a sort of step-by-step process journal while creating this piece, through pitching, researching, interviewing, & writing, please let me know in the comments.

When depression makes motivation elusive and everything feels overwhelming, creative work becomes both more difficult and more necessary. We write not despite our limitations and the world's pain, but because of them. Of, one could say, alongside them. Our struggles don't disqualify us from meaningful work—they inform it.

Practical Strategies for Creating Through Dark Times

Start with the smallest possible step. When everything feels monumental, identify the tiniest creative action you can take. Open a document. Write one sentence. Record a voice memo into which you ramble your dreams. The goal isn't productivity—it's maintaining connection to your creative identity.

Honor your capacity for witness. Your awareness of global suffering isn't a burden to overcome but a feature of your sensitivity as a creator. Channel this awareness into your work rather than fighting it. Ask: How does this pain inform what I need to write? What perspective can I offer from within this complexity?

Create systems for interrupted workflow. Depression rarely follows our creative schedules. Develop methods for easy re-entry: leave notes for your future self, create simple voice recordings about where you left off, maintain a "fragments file" for thoughts captured during difficult periods.

Balance consumption with creation. When we're struggling, it's easy to become consumers of others' work rather than creators of our own. Set boundaries around news consumption and social media while maintaining enough awareness to stay connected to what matters to you.

Embrace the both/and reality. You can be depressed AND creative. You can be overwhelmed by global injustice AND still write. You can struggle with taking a shower AND still have important things to say about the world. These aren't contradictions—they're the complex reality of being human.

Don’t forget to take concrete actions to help. Art is one thing; direct action is another.)

Resources for Writers Navigating Difficult Times

I am trying to be careful with this list because I know that some crisis lines engage in involuntary hospitalization or shady practices. Please let me know if this is the case and I’ll make a note next to them.

Mental Health Support:

• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988

• Psychology Today therapist directory for trauma-informed care

Creative Support During Depression:

• The Midnight Library by Matt Haig for perspective on depression and possibility

• Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert for creativity and fear

• The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron for maintaining creative practice during difficult times

• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl about surviving the Holocaust and making meaning from even the worst things

Global Awareness and Action:

• Doctors Without Borders

• Palestinian Children's Relief Fund

• GoFundMes for families in Gaza are plentiful on Bluesky and many have been vetted

• Call Congress. Look up 5Calls and follow their instructions

Writing Through the Both/And

The truth is that small things and big things coexist in ways that often always make sense. The effort of maintaining creative practice during depression exists alongside the effort of bearing witness to global suffering. Neither negates the other.

Both are real.

Both matter.

Your struggle to write while depressed doesn't minimize the struggles of those facing violence and injustice. Your awareness of global pain doesn't invalidate your personal difficulties. You are allowed to feel both. You are allowed to create from within both.

The world needs stories written by people who understand this paradox—who know what it means to carry both personal and global pain, who create not from a place of unwounded privilege but from within the complex reality of being human during difficult times.

We Keep Going Somehow

There's something profound in that phrase: "We keep going somehow." It acknowledges both the mystery and the necessity of persistence. We don't always know how we continue, but we do. The shower gets taken, eventually. The words get written, in fragments and fits and starts. The donations get made, the awareness gets maintained, the creative work continues.

For those of us who write with limitations—whether mental health challenges, physical conditions, or simply the overwhelm of caring deeply about a world that often feels broken—this continuation isn't about overcoming our struggles. It's about writing through them, with them, from within them.

Your creative work doesn't require you to be unburdened or unaware. It requires you to be honest about what you carry and to transform that carrying into something that serves others who carry similar weights.

If you're struggling to create during difficult times, know that your limitations and your awareness aren't obstacles to meaningful work—they're the source of the stories that most need to be told. The world needs writers who understand both the effort of taking a shower and the weight of global injustice, who can hold complexity without demanding simple answers.

Ready to transform your struggles into meaningful creative work? The Unexpected Shape Writing Academy is specifically designed for writers who understand that limitations and global awareness aren't barriers to creativity—they're the foundation of our most important stories. Join a community that honors both your struggles and your witness, where you can develop sustainable writing practices that work with your reality, not against it. Registration closes on May 31.

Learn more about the Academy here.

If you're interested in following my trajectory as I write the longer piece about trauma retreats and healing, let me know in the comments below or reach out directly. Your interest helps me stay accountable to the work that matters most.

I write because it’s what I do best, and Reasons for Living is where I share my most personal, thoughtful work—the kind of essays that don’t fit anywhere else. If you enjoy what I write, I’d love for you to become a paid subscriber.

Paid subscribers get two exclusive essays per month and other bonus things that I think of in the middle of the nighjt.

Your support doesn’t just help sustain this newsletter; it helps sustain me as a writer and artist who is physically and psychologically unable to work at a traditional job.

If Reasons for Living has moved you, challenged you, or given you something to hold onto, I hope you’ll consider subscribing. If a paid subscription isn’t possible, a free one is just as appreciated. Also: if you’re unable to afford a subscription due to financial constraints, please email me at info@esmewang.com and I’ll comp you a paid subscription.

Either way, I’m grateful you’re here.