Erik Avalon

Every day is a beautiful challenge. The fact we are alive is a thing to enjoy, yet the civilization we find ourselves in seems intent on keeping us at odds with each other. I say embrace your fellow humans, be they friend or stranger. Not literally, but mentally; accept, understand, and encourage. Pity those who live their lives to do nothing more than separate, rile, and destroy. They cannot understand.

I am not a politician, celebrity, or public speaker. I can only do one thing to help change the world, and that is write. I love to write. I enjoy concocting strange worlds that are similar to the real one, yet askew in odd ways. Physical laws can work differently. People can have options that in the real world would seem ludicrous or dangerous. Destruction can be wrought without bringing any harm to actual people or property. Questions can be answered in fiction that we may never hold true answers to in this, our reality.

Fiction can inspire great things. It can teach us what parents and teachers can never seem to get to sink in. It can help us recognize things in ourselves that we might otherwise miss. Likewise with the people around us; fiction can open our eyes to what may lie underneath the tough exteriors of our fellow humans. Everyone everywhere has a backstory we may not be privy to, and fiction illuminates all of those possibilities.

The word "excuse" gets thrown around a lot when we don't like someone's explanation. Read a little more, and you may just see that excuses hold more power over the person giving them than you can immediately see.

The horror of our everyday lives is the misunderstanding that separates so many of us from our fellows. Think about how wars start, then turn to your everyday life and contemplate how many misunderstandings you encounter on a daily basis. Communication is the key to peace, and the best way to work toward it in our world is to first work toward it in your own life.

That is my daily struggle. That is why I must write.