Life is too complex to compress into soundbites. Every situation is different.
In a world of increasing grey areas, we are becoming more and more entrenched in black and white positions.
I'm a multi-faceted woman and person, like all women are - there's no black and white. We have shades of grey in the middle. And even many more colours that other people don't see!
A lot of the issues that I see, it is not an either-or situation.
I feel like the world we live in seems to be full of an increasingly grey area, but the culture that we live in seems to be getting really entrenched in black and white positions, and I think it's urgent to talk about that because it's going to kill us all.
We are all somewhere or the other a little grey, not black and white. We have our imperfections.
Here's the problem: the description of the world is always reduced to yes or no, black or white. Superficial stories. Superhero stories. One side is the good one. The other one is evil.
Life is about the gray areas. Things are seldom black and white, even when we wish they were and think they should be, and I like exploring this nuanced terrain.
In most national debates, though the reasons may not be equally balanced, yet there are commonly some plausible which may be pleaded, even in favor of the weaker side.
I reject the idea there are just two sides. I think that with the amount of ideas and thoughts there are, it's not even going to be consistent with the same person. People can hold liberal and conservative dogma points at the same time. They're not living their lives via platforms. They're living their lives. The whole thing is an awfully tired construct.
You know, one of the things I like about this world, or at least I like about the way we're presenting this world, is these issues are terribly complicated - not nearly as black and white as we're led to believe.
I would never feel confident enough to express my views and opinions as the right ones because I just don't think that's possible. There are so many sides to everything that nobody is right or wrong.
The truth is complicated, and few people are actually monsters.
We try to do that for stories - we try to say, 'OK, here's the message, here's the theme, here's the good people and the bad.' Life is not nearly like that.
Nothing is all good or all bad, nothing is black or white, everything is just messy and human and difficult.
I'll shout it if they want: Down with isms! Up with a Left that is capable of thinking outside the box! In other words, I am more than completely cured of simplifications, of dividing the world into good and evil, of thinking in black and white. I have repented!
I like playing human beings - I don't believe in good or bad. I don't believe in black and white. I believe in different tonalities. I believe in different layers of emotions and states of mind. I believe in characters that can be human.
You come to realize people are not simple.
Serious thinkers are few, and the world is ruled by crude ideas.
If you look in real life, it is very hard to describe people as good people, bad people, heroes or villains. People aren't bad people. They all have their justifications.
If you want to slice into America, it's pretty red, white, and blue in terms of how it goes about things, but there's a gray area there, and I've always been interested in where things are complicated.
That's what I love about history - nuance. I don't believe in unalloyed heroes. Everyone's got warts, and everyone's got a surprise side.
I think my generation's inability to speak in absolute terms when it comes to politics is a very positive thing; it's made us more nuanced, made us more complex.
I always try to find something I like about the bad guys and then try to find the mistakes and the flaws in the good guys.
If you break things down to goodies and baddies, the baddies are always a bit more alluring in fiction, and that's true from a narrative point of view. But I wanted to write a novel about real life, and real life is a bit more nuanced than that.
