A Fascination for Fantasy, or Why I am Obsessed with Happy Endings

Stories are everywhere, and everyone tells them. It's the most ubiquitous form of enjoyment. They are shown on TV, waiting in the library, and told during conversations.

I like happy endings. I have a slightly odd definition of a happy ending, but there needs to be an ending where the main character accomplishes his goal. He may be dead, or have given up something important for him... He may not actually be happy--having lost his true love or made the world disappear--but somewhere along the line, he chose that and he accomplished what he chose to accomplish.

Put like that, perhaps I need happy endings because I need to believe in free will. I need to know that we're not just puppets. If I make a choice, it will make a difference, and if I don't give up, I'll get what I set out to. Now, the price along the way might be much higher than I would like, but that choice should be up to me. I refuse to believe that we're just victims of the ever-stoic, ever-turning world.

Besides, writing is art. So perhaps I'm just a traditionalist. To me, art should be fascinating and beautiful. It may be skewed in some way, but in the end, it should be someone's vision of how the world should be. People who see the world as something cold, dark, and ugly scare me, not because I can't relate, but because I can.

It's too easy to slide down into cynicism. I'm not "worldly" in the sense that I have done horrible things or explored the nitty gritty of the world. But--at the risk of sounding like a drama queen--I know just as well what it's like to be alienated and to think that the world can go to shit for all I care. I get tempted, too, to botch other people's hard work just so I have a better chance at something I might not even really want. I have hated children. And puppies. And couples in love. And sometimes, it's so easy to just insinuate a little thing to make people break up, or to say, "Yes, you should hate; you have a right to hate." Then, I can sit back and think to myself, "Well, it's their fault that they're not strong enough. It was bound to happen anyway." Never mind that some things need careful nurturing before becoming stalwart.

It's become habit now, but it used to take sheer force of will to stay optimistic, to give everybody the benefit of the doubt, and to accept that people who make mistakes deserve second chances. Because people do flourish--maybe not everyone, but enough, and if they're not given the chance to reach their potential, then this would be a bleak world indeed.

So I don't like stories where people are victims, or stories where people do everything they can but still don't succeed. It may make some people feel better about their own lives, but it just makes me doubt the effort I put forth. I would rather know that the ideal world where efforts are eventually rewarded is at least imaginable, if impossible to be perfectly replicated in the real world.

I want to believe that even if everything seems to be screwing you over, that as long as you don't give up, you will succeed. I don't need stories to reinforce what I already see so easily in the world around me: that even if you do your best, the world can still fall apart on you. No, I want to be optimistic and forgiving and believe in happy endings. Because the alternative is to become cold and glamorous and selfishly ruthless.

(And anyway, it's not like by not having stories with happy endings, I can somehow 'save' them for the real world.)

On Normalcy

This has been a touchy subject, and so I will try not to make generalizations. Rather, I will give you the specifics (of my view on it) and let you extrapolate from there.

Ah, to be normal...

I'd be lying if I said I want to be normal. No, I want to be different, unique... extraordinary! Of course I want to be special. Perhaps that's just part of the culture I'm immersed in, or perhaps it's a basic human drive or need, or perhaps it just is. I would rather win the Pulitzer prize or be known as the girl who ate the most tomatoes in a day than forever be just 'a girl.' The bottom is line is that I don't want to be average, or mediocre, or... normal.

But being different is not as easy as that, because there's another side to normalcy: acceptance. Society seems to accept the 'norm' much easier than those who are different. I don't know why... Maybe it's easier to be compassionate when you think the same way. Or maybe it's because the person who is most like you is most likely to support the same causes as you. Or maybe people were raised to revere this concept of normalcy and most have never looked beyond the 'do' to the 'why'. Whatever it is, those who color inside the lines are much easier and more generally accepted.

And yes, I want to be accepted, too. To that end, I try to make people feel comfortable with me and to be friendly. And yes, sometimes, that means not stating my opinion on something straight out, or dressing in a way that some people might not like. So, yes, I adapt the personality I project to suit the person with whom I'm interacting. But I don't think that compromises my individuality as long as I'm still myself with my crazy ideas of becoming an editor and learning to skydive and eating tomatoes all day long when I'm in private.

And it certainly doesn't mean that I don't accept those who are different. So while I might be "acting normal" most of the time, it doesn't mean that I am, or that I care if you are. And it certainly doesn't mean I would give up anything that's truly important to me in order to maintain the appearance of normalcy.