Story Time

I'd say this is a rant, but it could just be a random group of thoughts strung together on some similar thread. I'll let the reader be the judge, as my head won't stop spinning even though i did take my a.d.d. meds today.

Okay, so this is what's been rattling around in my head for somewhere between 15 minutes and an hour(I can't remember). So it's story time boys and girls!

My girlfriend, myself, and a good artist friend of ours (huh, that's wierd. She's a good artist and a good friend, I just saw how I formed that sentence.) were talking about all sorts of crap in the car on the way to and from dinner. Well honestly, they were mostly talking about things, and I contributed where I felt I could. As it seems happens in a lot of conversations. Amongst the topics were people, writing, and art.

This got me thinking, about people mostly. Thinking about how people are stories, and not in a comparative "Bobby is sooo Catcher in the Rye" type of way, but in a way that each person is an individual story. Beginning, middle, end. Introduction of character, character development, conflict, climax, resolution, epilogue.

So, the inherent problem with this concept is that: No matter who narrates the story, who it's about, what conflict the character encounters, who they loved and hated, and the other way around, if they hurt a few people or helped countless others, did absolutely nothing, did everything they could possibly do, or just lived life the only way they knew how, the story is the same. At least in one way.

The ending.

No matter how the story comes to the ending or what form it comes in, it ends. Plain and simple, everyone on the face of the Earth has a story and every single one ends the same fucking way. Which, when you think about it really sucks and is incredibly boring. Maybe that's why most people try not to think about the ending of the story, because up to that point it's really interesting and sometimes exciting, and then ends the same way everyone's does, same old boring death.

Of course that begs all of the obvious questions; Is everyone's story already written? Can I change my story? Why are we in it? Who's the publisher? Will my character be recycled? Blah, blah, blah.

I think the better questions to ask (Mostly because the other questions are about as likely to be satisfactorily answered as I am likely to win a Mister Universe competition and grow a 12 inch penis out of my left nipple.) are more personal. Does my story have any focus points? Who am I writing for? and Is there enough comic relief in my story? (This last one is redundant, because the answer is always no, but it's a good motivator.)

Anyway, back to the death thing. I have a feeling that since everyone inevitably has an ending, there's a reason for it. Our bodies are not meant to last forever, which leads me to believe that our stories here on Earth as people are like individual sentences in stories a damn sight bigger and longer than the Lord of the Rings series.

Either that of whoever designed the human body did a half-assed job. Like we're human 2.0, a beta release with one hell of a bug in the software. If that's the case this asshole was probably fired a long time ago and his bosses have been trying to find the fuck up ever since, because they forgot to make him give them a run down of how he wrote it and what the sequencing is.

Whatever you believe as far as the reasons for our stories, I think everyone can agree that without character interaction, conflict, development, and at least a few small resolutions, our stories would be just as boring as having the same ending as everyone else.

Remember the old question "If your life was a book would anyone want to read it?". My answer to this so far has been God I hope not, because that person obviously doesn't know good writing if they enjoy my book. I know a good writer who's work they should check out though.

I feel like that's a decent place to bring this tidbit of my story to an end. Write on people, write on.