Lately, I'll readily admit that I've found myself wishing I lived in a fairy tale. Not, mind you, because I want to be some kind of powerless damsel-in-distress. Not, either, because I want a prince to happen by on his trusty steed and literally sweep me off my feet. Not because I have any problems with wardrobe, or with other people, or with anything else.
Sometimes I just wish that everything really were that simple. Good guys wear white. Bad guys wear black. No doubt as to who will be hero and who will be villain.
But really, what makes the world so interesting is that it's...smudgy.
I often find myself explaining to people that my favorite heroes are not those who are SO pure of heart and SO above it all that they manage to save the day. Those heroes: they aren't relatable. I'm not always pure of heart. And I'm certainly not above it all. If anything, most of us are always in the thick of it.
What, then, am I to like about someone who seems so much better than I am? (I inevitably end up hating the purest-hearted heroes. They're insufferable. And they're boring.)
The smudgy. I relate to the smudgy. They don't always have pure motivations, and they don't always know what they're doing, and dagnabit, they're fascinating.
I suppose the lesson must be: fairy tales are simple, and we like them that way. But we like them because we know they aren't real. Real=smudgy, smudgy=good.
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