When you watch a new movie or TV show, or pick up a newly released book, sometimes it's striking -- haunting, even -- how timely it feels. Even stories set in a fictional universe can feel so politically relevant, so eerily similar to things that have happened quite recently in the real world (or are happening right this moment) that you start to wonder: How did they know these things were really going to happen?
Of course, the book you're reading or movie you're watching that just came out last weekend wasn't written yesterday, no matter how much it might feel that way. These sorts of large-scale projects begin their early stages years before general audiences get to see the final version. Those nods to current events feel like direct references -- but most of the time they aren't. Not entirely. But there is a reason a haunting sensation fills the room in those moments. No matter how long ago that manuscript was written, in the history of our very real world, some things never change.
When we say that history repeats itself, we mean that nothing happening right now is totally original in a manner of speaking. People in power always blur the lines of morality to seize more control. Capitalism always destroys the best humanity has to offer itself. Nature always has a way of asserting dominance over human-made things. The context might look a little different, but for most things, it's the same patterns over and over. We tend to just sort of forget that -- unless, of course, we're storytellers who pay a little bit more attention to our surroundings, past and present, than most.
Being creatively observant is both a blessing and a curse. To recognize these devastating patterns enough to craft stories around them that both reflect on the past and caution toward the future -- whether you want to write them down or not -- is exhausting. But it matters. Because if we stop telling these stories, we become complicit to the immorality of our oppressors.
If that story feels a little too on the nose, it's because we've seen this film before and we haven't forgotten the ending. That, if nothing else, may be the only way humanity will survive.