Rather than writing about international events, I write about

There is deep humility and quiet grandeur in the words of Tom Drury, when he said: “Rather than writing about international events, I write about individual lives. There is elation and sadness, death and birth, love and jealousy, co-operation and betrayal. All the great emotional transactions that happen wherever people come together.” In this statement, Drury reveals not merely a writer’s method, but a profound philosophy of understanding the human condition. He reminds us that the true story of the world is not written in the chronicles of kings or the headlines of nations, but in the hearts of ordinary people — in their laughter, their losses, their quiet triumphs, and their silent wounds. The realm of the soul, he teaches, is as vast as the realm of empires, and perhaps far more enduring.

Tom Drury, known for his fiction that portrays the small towns and hidden corners of American life, stands among the storytellers who understand that universality lives within the particular. His words echo the wisdom of the ancients who once said, “The fate of one man is the mirror of mankind.” To write of individual lives, of the births and deaths, loves and jealousies, is not to turn away from the world — it is to see it more clearly. For every war begins with human fear; every peace begins with human understanding. The emotions that move nations are the same that move the heart of a single person. In the smallest acts of love or betrayal, the vastness of history is reflected.

To write of elation and sadness, as Drury does, is to acknowledge that these are not fleeting moods but eternal forces that shape all existence. Every birth is a declaration of hope, every death a return to mystery. Between these two boundaries lies the dance of life — love and jealousy, co-operation and betrayal, those eternal opposites that have driven both the rise of civilizations and the fall of empires. Drury sees that in each human heart burns this same duality. His art, therefore, becomes a sacred act: to capture not the noise of the world, but its pulse — the rhythm of souls beating in joy and in sorrow, together and apart.

History itself bears witness to this truth. Consider the writer Leo Tolstoy, who, though he lived in an age of revolutions and war, turned his pen toward the domestic and the intimate. In War and Peace, he revealed that behind every battlefield lies the private pain of lovers, mothers, and friends. He showed that history is lived not in palaces, but in kitchens and courtyards, in the eyes of those who suffer quietly. So too did Tom Drury remind his readers that true storytelling is not the art of grand spectacle, but of deep empathy — of seeing the infinite in the ordinary.

The great emotional transactions Drury speaks of are the currency of all humanity. They are the invisible threads that bind strangers across time and culture. Whether in a farmer’s grief for a lost child, a friend’s silent envy, or a lover’s trembling confession, we recognize ourselves. The wise understand that it is not the size of the event that makes it significant, but the depth of the feeling that accompanies it. Empires crumble, but a single act of kindness, a single heartbreak, can echo across generations. To tell these stories, as Drury does, is to preserve the sacred truth of what it means to be human.

In a world obsessed with spectacle — with international events, power struggles, and global noise — Drury’s words stand as a counterpoint of peace. He reminds us that meaning is not found in the scale of things, but in their sincerity. The wise man does not measure life by headlines but by heartlines — the quiet patterns of love and loss that form the true map of human experience. For what are nations but gatherings of people? And what are people but walking stories — each carrying a universe within?

Let this be the lesson passed down: pay attention to the small, for the small is the seed of the vast. Look not only at the movements of history, but at the movements of the heart. When you see a stranger smile, when you forgive an old wound, when you feel love rise or envy sting, know that you are living the same story told since the dawn of time. And if you are ever called to write, to speak, or to live with meaning, remember Tom Drury’s wisdom — that to honor the lives of others, no matter how humble, is to honor the whole of creation.

For in the end, as he teaches us, all the great emotional transactions — the tears, the laughter, the betrayals, the reconciliations — are the real chronicles of the world. They are the true history of humanity, written not in ink or stone, but in the trembling, enduring language of the human heart.