When Stanley Kubrick released 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, audiences entered theaters expecting a science fiction adventure. They saw spacecraft moving with balletic grace, a red-eyed computer that seemed almost human, and a journey into cosmic mystery. Yet what lingers decades later is not the spectacle of rockets or the year printed in the title, but the sense of timelessness. The film feels less like a product of 1968 or a prediction of 2001 and more like a myth. Its specifics are stunningly crafted, yet they point beyond themselves to the larger questions of human destiny.
That sense of timelessness is what makes the film endure. It is firmly anchored in detail, but never trapped by it. Viewers see the futuristic helmets, hear HAL’s eerie voice, and watch the stars rushing past, yet the deeper effect is existential. We are not only watching astronauts, we are watching ourselves face the infinite. In this way, 2001 teaches us something about the power of art: specificity becomes the doorway into universality.
The same principle applies to writing essays. When we write, we begin with concrete details, often an incident or a personal memory. Without that anchor, the words risk floating away into abstraction. Yet if we remain only in the particular, we lose the chance to speak of what touches all human beings. To write meaningfully is to begin with the particular and to allow it to reveal the universal.
The Trap of Information and Impulse
Modern life drowns us in information. News headlines report tragedies every day. Numbers of the dead scroll across screens, and statistics summarize suffering in regions most of us will never visit. These facts are necessary, yet they often reduce lives to data. When death becomes a number, the human weight is lost.
At the same time, social media encourages us to react instantly. A few sentences, an image, or a video clip triggers outrage, mockery, or celebration. The structure of the platform rewards the fastest and sharpest responses. Yet the quickness that makes posts spread also strips them of depth. The result is a cycle of impulse rather than reflection.
Both journalism and social media have their place. Journalism preserves the record of events, social media shows us the pulse of collective emotion. But neither alone helps us live with wisdom. Too much focus on facts without reflection leaves us numb. Too much reaction without context fuels antagonism. The missing element is the reflective space that allows us to process the event, to wrestle with what it means, and to ask what it reveals about our shared humanity.
The Power of the Particular
Reflection always begins somewhere concrete. It may be the assassination of a political figure, the death of a missionary, the loss of a neighbor, or even a personal memory from childhood. To choose one moment is not to deny the importance of others. It is simply to recognize that universality becomes visible only through the doorway of the particular.
This is not a new method. Jesus himself told parables that were profoundly local and ordinary. A farmer planting seeds, a shepherd seeking a lost sheep, a woman searching for a coin. These were not grand cosmic images. They were daily life. Yet through them, he revealed truths about God, mercy, and the kingdom that remain timeless. The details of the stories were not the final point, they were the windows through which eternity was glimpsed.
When a writer reflects on one death or one event, it functions in a similar way. The choice of focus may appear narrow, but the intention is expansive. The goal is not gossip or partisanship, but resonance. In that resonance, the reader is reminded that the same fragility and the same hope belong to all of us.
The Weight of the Universal
Death offers a clear example of how particulars and universals intertwine. Consider three kinds of death. The death of someone you do not know is information. It might appear as a number on a news feed. The death of someone you know, whether loved or opposed, strikes closer to your existence. It reminds you that mortality has entered your circle. The death of your own self is the most unavoidable and intimate truth. It is universal, yet only you can live it.
Writing has the power to move us along these levels. When you encounter the report of a death in the news, it is at first a fact. But reflection turns it into something more. It connects that death with others you have known, with your own finitude, with the eternal question of how to live before death. In this way, writing prevents death from being flattened into statistics or twisted into propaganda. It allows the particular to open onto the universal.
This is also the essence of existential thought. Kierkegaard insisted that truth is not abstract but lived. To know what it means to die is not to calculate numbers or recite doctrines, but to stand personally before mortality. Essays, when honest, bring us into that space. They remind us that the death of someone else is not simply theirs, it is also ours, for it reflects our own destiny.
Writing as Resistance to Noise
In an age of endless noise, writing long essays may seem old-fashioned. Yet the very slowness and depth of writing are its strength. To write is to resist the pull of immediacy. It is to pause when the world demands reaction, to search for meaning when others settle for spectacle.
Writing forces us into sincerity. A few sentences on social media can be impulsive, careless, or performative. A longer essay cannot avoid depth. It demands that the writer consider multiple angles, test assumptions, and uncover connections. In this way, the act of writing itself becomes an education of the soul.
This practice also serves as a safeguard against cruelty. Quick words often wound. Longer words, carefully shaped, invite compassion. To write about a tragedy is not simply to state facts or declare a side, but to create a space where grief can become reflection, where loss can become wisdom. In this way, writing is not only communication but healing.
A Call to Write
For these reasons, I encourage everyone to take up pen and paper or keyboard and computer. Do not fear the blank page. Begin with one incident, one memory, one death. Write not as a journalist counting facts or a commentator chasing likes, but as a human being seeking truth.
When you write, allow yourself to see from several perspectives. Do not rush to conclusions. Let the event speak to you, then let it lead you toward universality. Ask not only what happened, but what it reveals about life, love, or God. In this way, writing becomes more than self-expression. It becomes a form of prayer.
Essays are not about proving who is right. They are about keeping alive the capacity to see humanity even in those with whom we disagree. They are about slowing down enough to hear the undertones of suffering, the echoes of hope, and the quiet presence of grace. In an age of clashing voices, essays remind us that the human voice can still speak with depth and sincerity.
From Events to Eternity
Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey may have been set in the year 2001, but it is not bound to that date. It is about the mystery of humanity standing before the unknown. In the same way, when we write essays about present events, we are not binding ourselves to those moments. We are using them as windows to see something larger.
The death of one public figure is not more important than the countless deaths in mission fields, Gaza, or Ukraine. But it can be a doorway. Through that doorway, reflection can remind us that every death carries meaning, that mortality is both universal and deeply personal, and that the fragility of life calls for grace.
To write in this way is to transform news into meditation, emotion into wisdom, bias into truth. It is to move beyond noise without leaving the world behind. In doing so, we take up the timeless task of turning the particular into universality, of turning fleeting events into lasting meaning. That task, humble and imperfect as it may be, is what keeps writing alive as one of the most human acts we can undertake.
Images: The 2018 4K UHD Blu-ray
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