Compulsive creativity & writing about war (OBSESSED #20)
Back on my bullshit with an upcoming series.
I feel a little embarrassed sending this out. I’m not saying I should be embarrassed, only that I am embarrassed. And that’s not the only way I feel, but it’s undeniable — I’m a little squirrelly! And we’re going to come back to what, specifically, is making me clench my moderately hefty bottom as I consider the upcoming and unavoidable moment of hitting “send” (which, if you’re reading this, means I’m even more clenched than I was when I wrote that, because I’ve just hit send, oh god), but only after I’ve told you what’s going on.
Next week, I’m going to send out a two-part series that I’ve been chipping away at for a few months. Both pieces are about the war in Gaza; specifically, media bias in America, and how that impacts what most Americans know about the war. For the last 10 years, I’ve been a full-time journalist, writing and reporting for a small handful of newspapers and online outlets in Houston, Chicago and now New York. It makes sense to use these things I can do — writing and reporting — to hopefully make a small impact in one specific dimension of the war in Gaza: namely, the average Americans view of what the hell is even happening in Gaza, because, my god, most U.S. media is so very biased, and how you feel about a thing is, uh, pretty contingent on the information you’ve got on that thing.
Honestly, before Oct. 7, I barely knew more than a few surface-level details on the occupation and conflict. As I learned more about it, that the default, mainstream stance in America is to blindly support the Israeli government’s actions just began to feel more and more … well, crazy. And having more folks able to spot biased reporting, or at least aware that media bias exists as profoundly as it does in America, might help folks develop a different understanding of what’s been happening in the region. Or, I guess, I expect many Americans would hold different opinions on Palestine and Israel if we all knew a bit more about media bias.
The reason that I’m slightly embarrassed to send this newsletter out? Or, maybe “embarrassed” isn’t the right word. But, exposed, or vulnerable, poking my head around the door with a sheepish wave, because … well, quite a lot of work has gone into these. What I’ll be sending out is actually fairly condensed, but the document that eventually became the forthcoming two newsletters is more than 30 pages long. And the nature of that work isn’t something I necessarily look back on with total fondness.
In what will come as a surprise to no one, least of all anybody who regularly reads OBSESSED … I have become obsessed with this task. Writing these newsletters often felt like a compulsive funneling of my skills and energy toward something even microscopically helpful to anybody in Gaza — emphasis on compulsive. Because, I didn’t initially set out to write about media bias. For around six of the eight weeks I worked on this, I was often folded into a sort of soft, pulsating pretzel, attempting the very sane goal of writing what I called *that thing* — *that thing* that, to put it simply, communicated everything useful I’d learned about the U.S. and Israel’s relationship in recent months. Everything, and nothing less. A very doable and achievable goal!
The more time I spent on it, the more comprehensive it needed to be. (Who asked me to do any of this? Nobody!) It was such an OCD-coded goal: absolutist, all-or-nothing, unforgiving. No idea, or angle, or approach was good enough to be fully pursued, because no idea, angle or approach did everything I wanted it to do. It was Sisyphean, and it wasn’t until I finished this project that I saw just how much of my creative process, let alone my mental life, had been hijacked by a sudden, compulsive need to do this thing and do it really well.
Anyway, the process behind all of this feels worth sharing in its own right. Given how many of my friends have been diagnosed with OCD in recent years (several! what! who’s counting? all of us!), I’m nearly certain somebody will, in fact, recognize that logic in their own thinking, which would be a very cool thing. Also, I love talking about OCD. Truly, three nights ago, it’s 3 a.m., and I’m outside a bar, clutching a friend by the shoulders and saying with barely hidden enthusiasm, “I’m going to send you a compulsions checklist, and you can tell me if anything resonates!!” I never STFU about OCD. And this is Substack, after all — a place to talk about the writing in honest, unromantic terms. Cheers to that?
All right. Time to hit send. Thanks for reading — talk in a few days.
Love,
Cara
