No one can convince me that the arts aren't necessary to our mental health.
Music, art, poetry, short story, novel, theater—all of these are antidotes to the pain that the daily news inflicts upon us via Facebook, television, and radio.
How, for example, do we process the shootings in Orlando, St. Paul, Baton Rouge, and Dallas? How do we give expression to the grief we feel over lives lost?
Perhaps someone has written music that will help break through our confusion, soften our rage, and help us cry. Maybe a poem will sum up in brittle language just how angry we feel. Maybe we'll want to retreat into a narrative different from our own; it's easier to breathe when it's someone else's story. Or we'll read a story akin to our own.
It's good to know we're not alone. On the stage and screen, we can witness crimes committed by characters not unlike ourselves. We can watch the drama with perspective: theirs is not our story and yet, on some very human level, it is.
The arts heal us. They serve as an escape and a corrective. They keep us hopeful. They keep us sane.
I’m Bonnie Amesquita, and this is my perspective.
