Monday, February 6, 2017

Life is a poorly written story

If you look it at through the lens of story structure

Is your whole life rising action up until the climax where you do something neat right before you die?

Do you climax early (heyoooooo) and then spend the rest of your life coasting towards your denoument?

Does your life have a single inciting incident? Something that kicks off the entire adventure? Just one thing that you can point to and say “that’s it, that’s where my story really began”?

That sounds dreadfully boring, to have one long-ass story that takes an entire lifetime to tell

And to only have a single story in you, even if it’s a really good one

So maybe it’s a bunch of short stories?

Here’s where this part started (and it’s muddled, because there aren’t really abrupt ends, and everything just sort of slides into each other), here’s what happened in this story, here’s how this story ends, here’s the resolution and what’s changed

Or maybe your life isn’t any stories, maybe your life’s just a life! And it’s yours! It’s yours, you fool! It’s the only thing that really will ever belong to you! So stop trying to shape your life to form a narrative, or you’ll just end up with a bunch of poorly written stories, even if your life is really good.

Oh look, I did a period, there, as if to make a point, even though, between you and me, it was really just an accidental period.


That one right there was on purpose, though