Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Stories We Tell Ourselves

We all have stories we tell ourselves. We had them when we were children:

"I'll run away and be a circus ringmaster. THEN you'll be sorry!"

"This is not my world. This is not my life. One day, my REAL parents - who are secret agents and are actually royalty will take me away. THEN you'll be sorry!"

"They didn't believe me. One day, they would know that I was right. THEN they'll be sorry!"

And we have them as adults:


"I'll run away and be a circus ringmaster. THEN you'll be sorry!"

"This is not my world. This is not my life. One day, my REAL parents - who are secret agents and are actually royalty will take me away. THEN you'll be sorry!"

"They didn't believe me. One day, they would know that I was right. THEN they'll be sorry!"

The sad truth is that, no one cares what story you keep telling yourself. Why? Because they're too engrossed with their own stories.

Here's my story:

I have a wife who is a Thai-Japanese Jew. She got killed by Malaysians while trying to save some blind paraplegic orphans.

Out of grief, I morph into a steel-winged humanoid monstrosity. Satan came to convince me to join his battle against God. I kill Satan.

I kill all the angels. And then I throw this planet into the sun.

Then I explode myself and take the whole universe out with me.

THEN you'll be sorry.

The focus is always on how WRONGED I was. For that, I needed justification, and that's why I killed the Japanese-Jewish Thai. Heiress.

In our stories, somebody has to suffer. Or rather, everyone has to. Including ourselves.

That's bullshit.

But we keep on telling our stories to ourselves. We all do.