Everyone is the hero of their own story. It’s human nature: no matter what weird, hideous or depraved things you might have done, those things were necessary in order to further the plotline for the hero of your own personal Epic Saga. For example, when I stole my girl away from her fiancee of two years, it wasn’t because I was a douchebag with no regard for the sanctity of marriage or emotions of others. It was because I was a romantic hero, saving her from a lifetime of having the bottom of her feet frantically licked by a man who simultaneously jerked off into her good work shoes.
No one else saw it that way, as they bandied about terms like “homewrecker,” “sociopath” and “sloppy seconds to The Foot Slobberer”, but that’s okay; it’s my story. Everyone else is a supporting player, comic relief or a redshirt.
Your Story will change with the circumstances to keep you in the Hero seat. Punch a guy in a bar for trying to poach the last fat chick at last call? You’re living a film noir, protecting the honor of a femme fatale (Because if you fuck her you will probably die. If not of an STD, then of embarrassment). Cheat on your taxes so you can afford a Real Doll? You’re Robin Hood on a quest for Maid Marian… and the fact that Maid Marian’s apparently suffered a tragic spinal injury leaving her a motionless, insatiable nymphomaniac gives it a nice doomed romance, Autumn in New York flavor… Look: just because it’s Your Story doesn’t mean it’s a good one. Anyway…
Usually it’s pretty easy to justify bent behavior as furthering your own epic story because you’re talking about isolated incidents. Most of us don’t go on long tears of weirdness. Because we can’t. We have jobs, and shit to do, and amyl nitrate costs money. It becomes a little harder to frame your life as a heroic saga when you have to compartmentalize a bunch of misanthropy. I’m trying to think of an example…
Okay: as a purely hypothetical argument, let’s say that you’re a child star, and you’ve lost everything. You’re not working, you’re married to a guy who thinks that “deodorant” is a purely theoretical quantum particle, and that “cologne” is the city where Hitler surrendered to the French. He’s divorcing you and looking to clean you out, and thanks to years of shoveling pure(ish) Arkansas Doublewide Crank into your snortpipe, you didn’t see this coming.
So in an attempt to recover your former glory, you go out on a public criminal rampage. But it doesn’t make any sense, because instead of selling the one piece of booty you had left of any value, you’ve now given it away for free. So, in desperation, you go out for one last-ditch, Reservoir Dogs-style, “I’m getting out of the life” job, and you wind up disfigured and hospitalized.
Actually, that is an epic story. Unfortunately, it’s Batman’s.
[tags]Britney Spears, Kevin Federline, shaved head, rehab, Esther’s Haircutting Studio, Batman, The Joker, dark humor[/tags]
