Equal Kindness

Freedom and equality have been much on my mind lately for a number of reasons. The two things are, I believe, linked. I was teaching at a conference in Portland, Oregon a month ago. Each workshop began with a few instructions from a conference volunteer that included asking attendees to refrain from using language that was racist or sexist or bigoted in anyway. These instructions always ended the same way: “In other words,” we were asked, “be kind.”

I thought of my most recent book, Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt. It was, in a lot of ways, about equality, albeit seeing a world where there are no creative haves and have-nots. Everyone is born with curiosity and imagination, which is all anyone needs to create anything. To believe otherwise is inaccurate, counter-productive and, ultimately, unkind. Yes, it’s unkind to call another writer talentless or unimaginative, to condemn them to a lifetime sentence of valueless labor. But most often this unkindness is directed toward ourselves, as we sit at our desks, struggling with some story and wondering if we “have what it takes.” In that moment we don’t believe in equality. Some have it and some don’t, and it turns out fortune didn’t favor us. So it goes.

It's another reason I love writing. It’s a simple and elegant way to practice being kind to myself every day. I can’t doubt myself, can’t wonder if I’m talented, or if I have anything valuable to offer the world. I have to remember and trust that I can’t make myself equal to anyone through hard work or happy inspiration, I can only create from what exists equally in us all but uniquely in me.

In this same way, none of us can create equality in the world. That’s already done. All we can do is express it in our actions and laws, and kindness is that expression, for it acknowledges our inherent and immeasurable value. What we call inequality is a lack of kindness, which everyone has experienced in solitude at some point – hating themselves, their lives, and their choices, and wondering if they’re just a broken thing who will never know joy or success. It’s a cruel and uncreative thing to ask yourself. This is why we write not to discover if we’re good enough, but to find the good places our imagination will take us.

Check out Fearless Writing with Bill Kenower on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com