My Weekly Epiphany

The older I get, the more I’m convinced people don’t like to be happy. Seems counter-intuitive, but I guess it makes sense. After all, people love narrative, and happiness is the enemy of good story-telling. There’s a reason fairy tales always have happily-ever-after at the end. You put it at the beginning and you got no story. Imagine that – a story where everything’s just fine all the way through. It just doesn’t feel right to us – too flat, boring. We like action, drama, despair – something to get the blood going. Like it or not, there’s a part of us that enjoys when the protagonist’s mother dies, or when the lead male and female get in a huge fight. These things are the “meat” of the story, and without them, no one cares.

That being said, some of the best stories contain happy moments. Great authors know how to dribble it in – dangling joy in front of the reader like a carrot-on-a-stick. Some stories start with happy and then let it all go wrong. Some are sad or infuriating all the way through, but make sure to sprinkle the subtlest glimmers of hope. So it seems, not only do people loathe happiness, they like to be teased by it – trying to coax it out but it keeps darting back into the brush.

So, are all people secretly masochists? Or is this a modern version of gladiator fights in ancient Rome, in which spectators could revel in the suffering of others? Maybe both? Well, I don’t think so. It’s been well documented that fairy tale happily-ever-after’s are unrealistic. And many have expressed the idea that stories must speak the truth in order to resonate with people. So, since reality isn’t constantly happy, great stories can’t be either? This is definitely part of it, but I think it goes deeper than that. There is something inherently human about being upset. Whether it’s anger, despair, or sadness, people have been feeling it forever. These emotions have always been important to our survival. We feel angry when our friend’s house is robbed and sad when their family member dies. These things are lost if all we can fathom is happiness. I guess essentially, that’s what good stories are – exercises in being human. They let us live the ups and downs along with the characters. Through all their rough situation and awful events, stories can help us to simply be people. So, next time I read a depressing story or hear a few girls gossiping about relationship troubles, I’ll remember about stories, and why people don’t like being happy all the time.