Say the things

If you need to hear it, they probably do too.

My wife will know what this means.

But it’s important that you hear it to.

Say the thing.

We creatives are sensitive beings.

We need to be to see the fragile connections between stray thoughts. We perhaps are creative in order to channel our pain repackaged as art.

To soften the rough and calloused parts of our soul.

We’ve often been bumped around by life, bruising and breaking, but continuing to create. To keep going. To share. To help. To bring wonder and joy. To warn. To protect.

Say the thing.

If you see someone you know, and they look good today. Say the thing. Tell them.

If you see someone, you care about, and they look weary, withdrawn or lost, say the thing. Give them kindness, love, let them know they’re not alone.

Don’t take “fine” as good enough. My friend Michael taught me that. He lost his brother to suicide, and now we run in his memory.

Every year one kilometre more for every year he would have been alive.

Say the thing.

Express the care, maybe not as advice, but certainly as empathetic words of love and kindness.

Unsaid words wither into the bitter seeds of regret, tumbling down into the hardened rocky crevices of our hearts.

Waiting to be watered by our guilt and our self-loathing until they burst forth as trees that crack open our beings. Splintering us and wrecking us from the inside out.

Dramatic much? I told you, we creatives are a sensitive sort.

Say the thing.

If you read a story and like it, let the creative know.

If you see a piece of art and it moves you, let them know. If you stumble across a job well done, let your colleague know.

We’re all children, wounded by childhood, pretending those wounds don’t exist. Hoping like a desert plant for a little bit of kindness to prove those wounds wrong.

Say the thing.

I’m sharing this reminder for all the writers on Substack with silent (but still amazing readers). For all the friends who haven’t yet phoned.

For all the siblings holding back because of some half forgotten slight.

For workmates keeping score. For partners waiting for the other to thaw.

Say the thing.

Someday you might not be able to.

Today might just be when they need it most.

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PS - Found this beautiful (AI + Human) video made by Simon Meyer, about a lonely Frankenstein’s Monster on LinkedIn. Similar idea, beautifully told.