#15: To Love Characters

Do you have to love people to be a good writer?

Do you have to love people to be a good writer?

I can’t say I’m someone who intrinsically loves people. I don’t look around the coffee shop I sit in every morning and consider my love for humanity. I don’t reflect on our status as a species defined by flaws and inextricably linked to one another through human depth, emotion, and pursuit. It rarely occurs to me to remember the weight of human anger, our inherent drive for justice, and our relative definitions of goodness. If I were prompted, as this question prompted me, I could consider these things. I’m looking around this room, zooming out like an overhead drone, and I see the barista, the blond on her phone in the corner booth, the boy reading a book and sipping tea. If I zoom out, I can see our larger place in the universe and the miracle that is our creation. It’s just that I don’t regularly dabble in our meaning. I merely observe these people. I appreciate them for their clothing choices, behaviors, and quirks. I can admire anyone’s chosen pursuits, even if they’re unlike my own. But I don’t really love the people I see in the coffee shop or the strangers on the street. Those who haven’t tugged my heart have simply served as a reminder of a crowded city. In my view, other people are merely stories. Human beings in a room are books in a library, unwritten but equally defined by a beginning and end.