Life's No Story

At best, it's predictably messy.
Shithings happen, mostly beyond our control.
Luck and fate reign supreme.

We have little say in its start and end, barely any choice in its consequential episodes.

How then to square things?
Well, gather around people—it's storytime!

Ah, The Story.
That rusty, trusty tool to help us deal with—if not sail through!—The Big L.
Connecting invisible lines to non-existent dots and concocting whatever keeps us sane, especially when you-know-what hits the fan.
Making matters and people palatable, interesting, funny.
And since matters and people seem to be always happening, so too The Story's use.

"A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead."
—Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

Isn't it just so lifelike for the truest stories to reside in fictional landscapes?
Neat biographies and the cult of non-fiction—now shove those in the fiction aisle!