why are we allowed to write about our issues only once we've resolved them?

Dear writer. You don't need to write from a heroic place all the time (if ever, actually). You are not obligated to be a guru or a role-model or a hyper-educated member of society in order to create art. You can write from a flawed place, a conflicted place, a dark place, an "unlikable" place, a deleriously happy place, a deep place, a fun place, a serious place, a critical place, a self-deprecating place, a reckless place. You can write from whatever place you want to write from. And all these essays where everyone is trying to pretend that they're perfect angels who do no wrong, are fucking boring. (They are!). Writers are historically bizarre, conflicted characters. All creatives are. For you're so much more interesting when you're in the middle of crawling through the mud. You're so much more interesting when you're still figuring it all out. You're so much more interesting when you're real.