The Canvas Of Humanity

We Don’t Make Mistakes, Just Happy Little Accidents

The other day I was relistening to a podcast (a Hardcore History: Addendum actually) and I was struck by the statement that “it’s absurd Hollywood can be starved for new ideas when no one has done, say, a movie covering the life of Olympias [the mother of Alexander the Great].”

And, listening to the extraordinary events that comprised the story of that woman’s life, it really made me think.

Being a student of history (note that I never said I was a good student) I’ve always been attracted to its argumentative aspect (for those of you who don’t know a history paper is not something where one simply writes down a smattering of disjointed nodules of data but instead presents them in as concise a case for why your assorted grab-bag of factual goodies matters a half rat’s damn as possible). You’re always working an angle, constructing an argument, forming a thesis by which your point will be defended while simultaneously crushing the argument of the opposition (it’s more fun than it sounds #trustmebro).

One of the ways I always helped ground my arguments was to give little anecdotes about how the items I was discussing directly affected the people that experienced them. Whether it was war, land redistribution, slavery, the freeing of slaves, or the impact of a simple evolution in pot making, lending a dash of the “human element” as one of my professors called it, went a great deal to building a case for the importance of my selected topic.

Once you realize that history is comprised of the complete spectrum of human emotion, of human experience, you realize the amount of empathy that can be drawn from viewing the simplest scrawl of words or etching in stone.

How, therefore, can Hollywood be starved for ideas?

How, really can you?

If you’re ever looking for inspiration look no further than your own history or that of others. I’m not just talking about opening a book and looking at one of those medieval paintings and becoming “inspired” to put a castle in your book. I’m talking about throwing yourself into that world. Read it as you would fiction. Live in that shit, breath that shit in and, if you’re a peasant, then possibly eat said shit, but whatever. My point is empathizing with historical figures is a wonderfully underused resource for gaining inspiration.

Being able to empathize with a piece of dry text from the 1400s can be the difference between seeing the words “The Genoese infantry lined up in block formation, but were soon routed by the French Cavalry” and putting yourself in the shoes of a man wearing 50 pounds of metal, struggling to breath as he runs towards a wall of pikes. It’s the difference between seeing words on a page and feeling the crunch of armor and bone beneath your sword, of seeing friends be stabbed and stabbing others in return, of grinding your feet to brace against being bowled over, of being knocked down and rising to your feet only to have the man beside you obliterated by the charge of cavalry. Yes “they were routed” is shorter. It’s certainly more concise. But you lose the humanity of the moment. The struggle. The fear. The elation and despair. With all of the events in our species’ history how could we ever run dry for a little thing like inspiration?

So, the next time you have “writer’s block” or are just interested in experiencing something new go ahead and pick up a history book.

You just might learn something new and, if you put your mind to it, you’ll definitely become a better writer because of it.