Happy Stories are Uninteresting

Movie director and writer Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, 40-Year Old Virgin, Funny People) was on NPR's Fresh Air last week. Terry Gross asked him about the unhappy, dysfunctional and odd stories that he tells. His answer was simple. He essentially said that happy stories don't make for good drama or tension or even good comedy. They leave no room for movement, growth, or failure.

Although I generally agree from a literature/story/drama point of view I am not sure that this need always be the case.

Most of our stories, if we told them in a straight-forward way would not elicit a lot of interest. Just think about the times you had to watch someone's home movies, slides, or baby pictures. That's because most of us tell our story in a way that emphasizes the sameness, the every-day-is-pretty-much-the-same idea. Even when we try to make it sound interesting, well, it isn't. I have a hunch that part of the reason for that is that we live in the middle of that life and it doesn't look odd or strange.

I thought about that a little the other week when writer Frank McCourt died. His powerful book, Angela's Ashes was not a story of a happy childhood. Alcoholism, poverty, abuse. The elements of dysfunction show up in abundance. His ability to overcome them and become the teacher, author, and human being he became becomes a success story. Even with a happy ending, it is still a story of drama.

But most of us can't look at our lives that clearly. For several years I have been wrestling with a memoir. I realize that my story is not one of great tragedy or great triumph. Most of the time I see my life as having been putting one foot in front of the other and trying my best to do the next right thing. Generally successfully. Even my pre-recovery drunk-a-logue is fairly pedestrian.

But the idea of a "new story" that I posted yesterday has opened the doors again. Life is not a series of BIG THINGS making for great drama. Life is doing what comes along- and then reflecting on and learning from those events. In the sameness of our stories can be the mirror that reflects to each of us the way has been led and unfolded.

In other words, insight and observation with a different eye can move us into the meaning and challenge of life. It can reveal new truths hidden in facts long assumed as common. It can reveal new depths of moving water underneath seemingly quiet pools and lakes of memory.

Fortunately, that doesn't take dysfunction or tragedy. It simply takes being awake- emotionally, spiritually- in whatever ways we can. To look and see, to listen and hear, to touch and feel- become the ways we wander on our own pilgrimages through our own version of life.