So, you know, when I think of survival as a creative act, it's

Hear the voice of Suleika Jaouad, who walked through the valley of illness and despair, and from it carried a flame of wisdom: “When I think of survival as a creative act, it’s not trying to plaster over the isolation or rewrite your predicament into something positive with a happy ending or neat resolution. It’s writing into the unknown.” These are not words of easy comfort, but of raw truth. They speak to the soul of one who has endured, who knows that to survive is not to escape pain, but to wrest meaning from the darkness while still standing within it.

To call survival a creative act is to see it as more than endurance. Survival is not passive—it is an act of making, of shaping, of choosing to write a path when none is given. The one who suffers may be tempted to cover the wound with false smiles or shallow tales of victory. But Jaouad warns us: true survival is not pretending the wound does not exist; it is learning to live with it, to speak from it, to create from its depths. This is courage—not the denial of pain, but the transformation of pain into expression.

The ancients, too, knew this wisdom. The poets of Greece did not disguise tragedy with false endings. Instead, they sang of Oedipus, of Antigone, of heroes who faced ruin yet revealed through their struggle the hidden strength of the human spirit. Their songs did not erase the predicament, nor plaster over the isolation of fate. They wrote boldly into the unknown, trusting that even in suffering, meaning could be made. In their art, as in Jaouad’s words, we see that survival is itself a form of creation.

History gives us another witness in the life of Anne Frank. Trapped in hiding, facing fear and despair, she did not pretend her circumstances could be turned into a happy tale. Yet she wrote, pouring her voice into the pages of her diary. In doing so, she transformed her isolation into testimony, her predicament into a legacy of hope and humanity. She did not know the ending—indeed, it was tragic—but by writing into the unknown, she created one of the most enduring works of the human spirit.

Jaouad’s wisdom also resists the pressure of false positivity. In a world that urges us to always smile, to find a “silver lining,” to wrap suffering with a tidy bow, she reminds us that not all endings are neat. To demand a happy resolution is to deny the depth of what it means to be human. True positivity is not the erasure of pain but the honesty of facing it, the courage of creating within it, the strength of surviving without guarantee of triumph.

The lesson for us is profound: we need not wait for the storm to pass before we begin to live. Even in darkness, even in uncertainty, we can create—through words, through deeds, through the simple act of carrying on. To “write into the unknown” is to trust that the act of survival itself is meaningful, even when the ending is unclear. This is not weakness but strength, not despair but the deepest form of hope.

Practical steps flow from this teaching. When you face hardship, resist the urge to cover it with shallow cheer. Instead, speak your truth—write it, sing it, share it. Accept that you cannot control the ending, but you can choose your voice in the midst of it. Seek companions who allow you to be honest, who do not demand perfection but encourage expression. And each day, create something small—a word, a gesture, a prayer—that affirms your survival, even in the unknown.

So remember Suleika Jaouad’s counsel: to survive is not to plaster over wounds, nor to promise neat resolutions, but to create courageously within the uncertainty of life. Walk forward, even when the path is dark, and know that in every act of honesty, in every act of expression, you are shaping meaning from the void. This is survival as art, survival as defiance, survival as creation.