Experiencing The Impossible- By Micah Schafer

Experiencing the Impossible- Micah Schafer, English 110.14

Writing to me, is many things. Often, writing is simply a way to relay necessary information. Sometimes it’s mandatory for life and not always the most enjoyable activity. However, that is not why I choose to write. That is simply one obligatory function of the larger picture.

I choose to write because I am only one person with one life experience. Writing, and by extension, often reading as well, is humanity’s greatest tool to live beyond one’s own lot. Most of us will never travel the world, nearly none of us will ever leave earth, and not a single one of us will ever live the life of someone long past or distantly yet to come. Writing is a way to experience the lives of people vastly different, and incomparably fantastic in contrast to our own, often monotonous stories.

Personally, I mostly favor stories as a form of thought-provoking entertainment. I enjoy writing and reading fantasy, science-fiction, and of people and places far separate from my own world, but experiential writing is not always by necessity a form of escapism from banality. We can learn the lessons that others have learned through their hardships. We can discover our own failings through those of others either real or fictitious and use stories as a guideline for bettering our own selves.

I write because through reading stories, I have felt deep emotion, I have learned valuable lessons, and I have experienced the incredible. I write because I want to involve myself as the catalyst for someone else’s amazing transformation through storytelling.

Life on earth is limited, but possibilities for life in a story are unimaginably inexhaustible. The impossible can only be experienced in our imaginations, but that does not diminish its worth. The worth of an experience is defined not by its realism, but by its impact on a life.