Here's what I'm thinking.
We are all in the middle of a story at any give moment. We're both the protagonist and the antagonist, given the time or place or emotional conditions. Even if we're at the end of a chapter, a page is about to turn that may invite new plot twists previously unimaginable.
But here's the thing: we're also the authors. Sure we have contributors, self-proclaimed editors and out and out story stoppers making an appearance all the time. But still, it's our name on the cover of our own books which leads me to this:
It's all, every single minute of it, a story that we're making up as we go along. And that leads me to this:
The story is full of distortions and various shades of color that we add each time we return to a previously concocted memory.
So our memories are the stories that we make up in order to justify our emotions or our existence.
And that is why it all feels like one grand illusion, because it is.
Now even though we are crafting our stories, that does not mean that we understand them. The real underlying purpose beneath our prose may not be very clear even to us.
So we turn to shrinks and priests and rabbis and mates and friends and worst of all, enemies to tell us what our story really means. And you know what that is? It's peeking at the end and you know what that does?
It ruins the story.
But here is the thing: it won't mean anything until you write, "The End." The obituary writers have the easiest task of all: they get to tell us the themes and purpose of our lives. They get to pull together all the pieces to be able to make clear our beginnings, middles and ends.
So in those terrible moments of identity crisis anxiety, where nothing seems to make sense, or everything seems negative, relentlessly unfair and even brutal at times, remember this: you are just writing another page of your story. It is not the whole book or even the chapter. It may in fact just be a single paragraph, sentence or word.
And your own interpretation of the facts is probably warped or biased or both.
We're always in a hurry to get to the finish line. That's what sex is all about and as soon as we get there, what do we immediately want? To do it again.
Nothing can satisfy us fully. Not sex, not Ben or Jerry, not the next iphone or trendy statement fashion item.
Everything in the physical realm is just a band-aid for the never closing wound of the open soul.
Nothing is in our control. Like Sarah Silverman said we're just molecules racing through time.
Nature is either holding us back and forcing us to propel forward with every increasing velocity.
Life is all a magic trick folks. Now you see us. Now you don't. We magically appear and then we slowly but surely disappear until we are nothing more than a casual memory to most; a significant one to the loved ones left behind who have inherited the symbolism of who we were by inserting us into the story of who they think or hope we are.
So...this novel life of ours is nothing more than a novelty. A gift really. One shot at being creative geniuses because that's what each and everyone of us are: rich, poor, brilliant, slow, sick or healthy.
We are play-wrights and playing is our rite and all that there really is.
We have long lost in this country one very important part of our declaration: the pursuit of happiness.
We pursue stuff now. We accumulate. We gather. We horde.
But we don't laugh like we used to. And there is no comedy at the moment that used to rescue us and help us make it through tragedies and world wars.
Comedy today almost seems quaint and once upon a time now, having been replaced by snarky comments, public embarrassment, humiliation, overly wry observations and narrated journeys about body functions.
I don't know about you but that sounds like pre-school to me.
So: go forth and write your saga and do yourself a favor: let the light of happiness and glee filter in and fall on your brow like morning rain. Your story is not your fault. It's not even who you are.
Yet.