They say life is like a roller coaster – sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down, and sometimes you’re just average. They say nothing is ever perfect, and everything is flawed in some way. They say things will always get better, and nothing can stay bad forever. They say there is a reason for life, and every living being has a destiny, some purpose which they must fulfill. They say these things are all true, incontrovertible, undeniable.
But who is to say they are right? Who is to say that one cannot live a charmed life, full of eternal happiness – or a cursed one, a living death, plagued by tragedy? Who can say there is no perfection in this world? Who could be so pretentious as to decree that every living being on this world must have a purpose, no matter how insignificant their existence?
I have seen perfection, seen things so devoid of flaw as to be nearly divine. I have witnessed lives full of magic and wonder, and met people who have never known sorrow or death, just as I have witnessed lives of unending horror and met those who have never known even one moment of happiness. I have watched as people die without reason, having accomplished nothing, leaving no mark of their existence on the world they lived upon.
Countless times, I have asked myself why – why we are here, what reason there could be for human existence, why some can live charmed lives while others are cursed with only dark sorrow. Why should we struggle at life, when no happiness is assured? Why should we hope so optimistically for a brighter future, when the darkness will always return? Some would call these questions pessimistic – I call them realistic.
After all, to be optimistic is to be disappointed. If we always hope for the best, we are constantly let down – nothing ever happens as expected. If we always rely on luck to ensure happiness, we never find the constant happiness we long for – everything becomes a gamble, with nothing being assured.
However, being eternally pessimistic is a flaw in and of itself. While things do not always go as planned, there is always the rare chance that they will miraculously…
But I get ahead of myself. After all, one cannot hear the ending of a story before hearing the beginning, for that would ruin the purpose of the telling, would it not? And so we shall start where all tales must – at the beginning, when I, too, believed all that they said.
