We’re all stories. We’re all the things we tell others. But, we’re also the things we leave out. I’ve learned that recently. I feel that is the problem when you think and believe people are the stories they tell.
There’s a canon; there’s a non-canon.
The things they tell others, the
Then, there are the things they never say out loud. These are the things that have some truth and some speculation to them. The parts which are never made official. Like, a fan-fiction forum of sorts.
I had a classmate. Past-tense. He killed himself last morning. There’s no sugar-coating it or saying it softly. He did it.
Everyone could see something was wrong. We could all see something wasn’t right throughout college. His behaviour became abrupt. He had issues with his health. All of that, and more, and yet, another story ended.
Four months since college ended, and he’s gone.
All that’s left is all the times he lied and said he was alright. That was his canon. The official story he chose to tell the world.
All that’s left is all the things people are going to speculate about, overthinking what must’ve pushed him to do it. His closest friend, at least the one I know of, couldn’t believe how it happened.
The speculation, the discussion, the “I think I saw it coming”, all of that is going to be the non-canon.
Things he can never verify or confirm.
Things he never told anyone but things that were there, just unaddressed.
When I was younger, I thought everyone crafted the perfect narrative to their lives. The stories they chose to tell defined them. I don’t know if that’s true anymore.
I think it is the things we leave out which tell who we are and our stories.
Maybe, it’s all in the blanks, the pauses, the deflections, and more.
Lately, I’ve started to feel that happiness is the real scam. It’s a fleeting feeling. Everything around us continually pushes us to seek it. It is just one emotion out of several.
The widely accepted number of human emotions ranges from six to eight. Happiness is just one of them. Happiness, then, is only about 12-16% of our existence.
I haven’t felt happiness in the last three weeks or so. I haven’t. So, I don’t think there’s any point lying about it. That’s what my best friend said last night as well.
What’s the point of saying “I’m doing good” when you aren’t?
I don’t know a lot of things. There’s just life. We do it every day. Sometimes, we do the other 84-88% of our lives. Sometimes, we do that for a while.
Yet, we never include that as a part of the narrative we craft for our lives. It never makes our canon because no one likes to hear about it.
I think we should try and change that. I don’t know how.