Who gets to tell the story?

One of the problems with telling other people’s stories is that you bear the responsibility for the telling.  Technology invites each of us to tell our story in many mediums.  When is it stealing?  When is it exploitation?  When is it empathy?  When is it giving the gift of meaning–the only gift writers have to give?  Language, that puckish knave, can sometimes express meaning well outside of the writer’s good intentions.  That is why to write is both brave and foolish.   For me, the act of empathizing with another human, of becoming them in my imagination, of wresting meaning from brash reality, that is the payoff.

Still, times change.  We must listen to others and take heed.  Here: http://nyti.ms/1XRvsz8