We're Not Interested in Happy People !

This is something I've been thinking about for about 36 hours now.

Yesterday, I was at LAU with Lina when somebody said something about stories. And of course, my ears went to high alert. The young woman was saying that most of the good books she was reading were sad or depressing so she had stopped reading for the most part. And Lina said, "Oh, nobody is interested in happy people stories. We want sad stories." And I thought, yes. Why aren't we interested in happy people stories? Are they so common that we don't see anything interesting about them? Or are they so rare that we cannot identify with them anymore?

The "news" formula, that happy stories don't make it to news headlines is understandable. These are news items.

But "story" principles dictate that people need to be able to identify with the characters so they can go through their emotional journey with them.

And then my mind started working mathematically;

If most people are happy, then happy stories will be boring indeed.
If most people are sad, then people should enjoy happy stories.
But most people being sad, means that happy stories should make it to news bulletins because this becomes news.
Therefore most people are happy.



I don't know if what I wrote makes sense at all. So I'll just hit the publish button and come back to these thoughts later !