The need to get away

Story archetypes:
1. Overcoming the monster (see April 26 post)
2. Rags to Riches (see April 30 post)
3. The Quest (see May post)
4. Voyage and Return (this post)
5. Comedy
6. Tragedy
7. Rebirth

The need to get away
In the best-selling book Eat, Pray, Love, a woman travels to Italy, India, and then to Indonesia, three continents removed from her New York City residence. She gets there by falling down a modern rabbit hole—a nasty divorce. Away from her ex-husband and their suburban home, this woman learns Italian, eats a lot of pasta, sits for months in an ashram, studies with a Balinese healer, and takes on a passionate lover. Eventually, she comes back home. But what has really happened during this, or any other, Voyage and Return tale? As readers, we want to know the point of the whole thing? What did she learn? How did her life change as a result?

Not all Voyage and Return tales satisfy our need for a lesson and a life change. Some tales, such as Gulliver’s Travels or Peter Rabbit, stay focused on describing a strange world with strange creatures. The main character is often just an observer, watching how the odd people or creatures behave in this strange land. Such tales end with the main characters returning magically to their prior reality, often barely escaping a Mr. McGregor or the Lilliputians or some other twisted villain. The story seems limited to the thrill of the final escape coupled with the relief of being back home.

But the heart of any Voyage and Return tale is to return home and know the place for the first time. By venturing into the foreign, the odd, the unusual, we seek perspective. A Voyage and Return moment in your life can be as simple as going to see a movie where strange things happen and the characters escape versions of doom in thrilling ways (I can’t imagine anything stranger than the Las Vegas portrayed in the new movie, The Hangover). It can be reading through someone’s Facebook page or escaping for a couple of days into (one of my favorites) a Candace Bushnell novel. It’s like looking away from the page, so that when you return your glance to your own life, you see a little more of what goes on in your own daily reality.

These tricks of perception are necessary because of how the human brain takes short-cuts. As soon as we encounter an experience similar to something we’ve already encountered, the brain fires up a select group of neurons and starts shaping our expectations. Take the gorilla movie for example (google Davies Gorilla Movie to watch it yourself).

In graduate school, I watched a video of two groups of people, half in white shirts, half in black shirts, passing a basketball back and forth. Those of us watching the video were told to count how many times the people in white shirts passed the basketball. A bounce pass counted as a pass, but just a bounce did not. The whole class watched. Some of us counted 16 passes, others were sure there were 17 passes, but then the instructor asked how many of us had seen the gorilla. The gorilla? I obviously hadn’t seen it. So we watched the video again, and this time, because my attention wasn’t focused so intently on counting basketball passes, I saw a man in a gorilla suit walk out into the middle of the people passing the basketball, beat on his chest a few times, and walk off in the opposite direction. There was a gorilla in that video, yet had someone told me about the gorilla before I watched it a second time, I wouldn’t have believed it.

Psychologists call this “inattentional blindness.” We don’t see what we’re not looking for. The Voyage and Return tale offers one way to restore sight. We need to find ways to head down a rabbit hole or sneak into Mr. McGregor’s garden and have what we thought was true turned upside down for awhile. Then, hopefully, when we return, it’s with a broader, more balanced perspective.

Finding and fulfilling your calling (The Quest)

Story archetypes:
1. Overcoming the monster (see April 26 post)
2. Rags to Riches (see April 30 post)
3. The Quest (this post)
4. Voyage and Return
5. Comedy
6. Tragedy
7. Rebirth

I heard the door click shut behind me. I was outside, but Austin was locked inside the neurological institute. I could look through the window in the door and see him, five years old and fiercely defiant, refusing to look at me, furious that I had admitted him into this place. At the time, I’d felt alternatives were few. Since he’d run out into the street and been hit by a motorcycle a year prior, Austin’s head injuries had led to more and more violent rages. He was no more than 45 inches tall, yet I was terrified of him. A week ago he had broken a family picture and tried to stab his older brother, Ryan, with a shard of glass. The week before that he had started a dangerous house fire from the gas stove. Yet I couldn’t imagine a reality that did not include this child, and all I could think of as I watched him through the door window was how to get him back home.

When this moment occurred in my life over 12 years ago, I didn’t think I was being called on a quest (after all, I was a mom, not a warrior), yet looking back, I can see how the quest archetype played out for me in this arena of my life. After Austin had been institutionalized for violent behavior for a few weeks, I got to have him home, first for an evening, then for a weekend. Given his fury at being admitted, I expected him to be delighted to be home. I was wrong. During his home visits, Austin would intentionally act out. He wanted to get back to the institute. He felt safe there, something he did not feel at home.

This realization led me to an in-depth study of feng shui, the eastern art of arrangement. I wanted to know if there was anything I could do in Austin’s physical environment that would help me get my boy back home for good. My feng shui studies led to a career change. After a life-changing week with my feng shui mentor, Carol Bridges, I took Austin home from the institution for good, yet this was not the end of my journey. I realize now, this was the “tool gathering” period. I was equipping myself for what was to come, and the next decade would be filled with more strange encounters and anguished moments than Ulysses’ Odyssey.

The call
At some point in our lives, we are all called on a quest, called to take on a task that we often do not feel we will survive. The call is as individual as the person being called. My calling grew from an awareness of how much of our lives happens below the surface of our awareness. I felt called to help my clients and students understand how the unconscious aspects of their lives (including influences in their environments) impacted them, whether they realized it or not.

Of course, this is not everyone's calling. I have had friends whose callings have been to stay sober or to battle breast cancer or to deal with an idiosyncratic and demanding parent. Each of these callings has led to unique journeys through hostile territory, yet each journey follows the same archetypal sequence of events. No matter what you have been called to do or where your journey takes you, knowing this sequence can provide support.

Your magic tools
Your magic tools have been slipped to you, possibly while you were plowing your way through another ordinary day. You may have received the gift of loyal friends or a sensitivity to others’ feelings or an active imagination. You may have received an elixir of charm or a hive of cerebral activity. Your shield may be your immaculate house or your optimistic outlook. Your sword may be your piercing insight or your humor or your dogged persistence. As you consider what tools are in your tool box, remember, magic tools are many and varied, yet they will enable you to get past difficulties that would otherwise block your progress.

Your companions
The quest is not a story type focused on a single character. When you embark on a quest, you’ve got companions marching through the muck with you. In fact, a large part of the first half of a quest is to realize how your interactions with others enable you to be more fully yourself. By sharing your gifts, and by supporting others on your journey, you fulfill the human need to be a part of a community, a community that both cheers you on and desperately needs your success. Your companions will not be able to go all the way with you, but if you don’t learn how to draw on and appreciate their strengths, you won’t get very far on your individual journey. Consider how your companions provide support on your journey. What are their unique gifts? How do they allow you to more fully be yourself?

Your goal
On a quest, you’re after something of great value. Regardless of how you describe the end-goal, a quest is never for personal glory. In fact, a sure way to distinguish between a quest “calling” and personal ego satisfaction is that the ego is only concerned with the self. If you hear yourself thinking any of the following, it’s your ego speaking:

• How will this help me?
• What can I gain from this?
• What will people think of me after I accomplish this?

A quest has a different aim, although it may be expressed in many ways. The quest aims to ensure a high and lasting quality of life for an entire community. A true quest may engender the following types of questions:

• How can I help make sure this is around for the next generation?
• How can I help restore innocence, beauty, and goodness in the world?
• How can I remove this threat to a happy, fulfilling existence and renew hope in others?

Your goal may be revealed to you in greater detail as you journey. My initial goal was to get Austin home, yet as I continued on my journey and encountered others who needed support, I realized my goal was really helping others make the unconscious conscious, in order to help them achieve a higher quality of life.

The journey itself
The journey is not always fun (consider nursing a parent through decades of dementia or battling years of chronic fatigue), yet no quest tale is composed of unending drudgery. Rather, the companions alternate through periods of difficulty and respite, there are times when you're battling a monster and there are times when the sun comes out and you rest. Regardless of how your journey unfolds, the quest plot is active. On a quest, things are always happening. You’ll think you’ve got it figured out and then another obstacle will arise. Thousands of years of collective narrative provide the following advice:

• Rest when you can.
• Take comfort in your friends.
• Allow others to help you through the rough spots.
• There is no better place for you to be than right here in the thick of it; escaping to some tranquil existence will not work.
• This quest will allow you to know yourself and share yourself more fully with the world.
  

Ignoring this advice leads to certain trouble. My personal journey was almost undone by my determination to do it alone. I remember getting calls at work that Austin had run away from school, or that he had been found unconscious in the driveway after huffing gas. I remember battling fatigue, self-pity, and feelings of inadequacy as I trained feng shui students, while running a store and writing books. In each case, I was forced to learn how to accept help from others. My support systems included my acupuncturist, my qi gong instructor, therapists and male role models for Austin, a few close female friends, and the restorative beauty of dozens of local canyon trails. Identifying any of the above advice that you may be ignoring will help smooth an already difficult journey.

The final ordeal
You knew it was coming. Throughout the journey you knew you’d reach the point where your friends would have to retreat and you would face a final ordeal on your own. St. John of the Cross called this “the dark night of the soul,” Jung referred to it as the “defeat of the ego.” Whatever name you give it, it’s the darkest, scariest place you’ll ever be. It’s when you look for hope and find it gone. It’s when old ways of seeing the world have crumbled to dust and you have no replacements. It’s when you can’t imagine how things could ever possibly be right again. But, it’s also when those peculiar strengths, insights, and gifts you’ve developed along the way are exactly what you need to endure and—finally—pull out of this dark abyss.

I won’t beleaguer you with details of my dark night, but I will share how unprepared I was for how long it could last. In my case, I spent almost two years in what felt like death. Perhaps if I’d read my classics or the Bible more thoroughly, I would have realized that Odysseus still has 12 out of 24 books to go in the Odyssey when he reaches his goal destination, and that Moses and the Israelites would spend 40 years in the desert after they escape the slavery of Egypt. The final ordeal, the one the hero/heroine must face alone, can take as long as the entire rest of the journey.

And there’s another piece that’s worth sharing here. Besides being lengthy, this portion of the tale is when the hero/heroine is required, not only to show self-reliance and independence from friends, but also to realign with a more universal “source.” In Jung’s terms, this is when the ego (“self” with a lowercase “s”) realizes that it’s not the ruler after all, and that true strength is to be found in connecting and aligning the ego’s abilities with what Jung referred to as “Self” with a capital “S.”

I’ve found it matters little what people call this universal source. What really makes a difference is whether they feel their lives are aligned with it. Alignment with source is an individual matter, yet it always requires two pieces:
(1) You must know what your strengths and gifts are and have mastered their use
(2) You must connect to your source to best use those strengths and gifts

As for me, my gifts were that I was determined, that I could piece together meaningful patterns in seeming randomness, and that my immersion in nature would keep me in touch with my source. I also found that years of study and an energetic practice would be required for me to overcome my ego’s fragile self esteem and my tendency to belittle others in my own defense. As for Austin, he is finding his own way, and I’ve become a supportive companion on his quest. As for you, I’d love to hear where you’re at on your journey.

A word on anticipating the call
As difficult as the quest journey is, it can be just as difficult to not feel called. After all, being “called” provides a unifying focus to our lives. It gives us a destination, as well as the motivation and means to reach that destination. Because a sense of anticipation and “being called” is found in many story types, we will look in detail at this situation in an upcoming post titled “Anticipating the call.” Look for this post after the individual posts on the seven story types.

Can it happen for you? Rags to Riches

Story archetypes:
1. Overcoming the monster (see April 26 post)
2. Rags to Riches (this post)
3. The Quest
4. Voyage and Return
5. Comedy
6. Tragedy
7. Rebirth

Walk out onto the American Idol stage and stand in front of those three judges. You can feel them evaluating you. This is it. This is your opportunity. Your chance to show the world your true worth.

You may have seen Susan Boyle take this same walk a little over a week ago and stand in front of the three judges of the TV show “Britain’s Got Talent.” The camera panned the audience, taking in smirks and raised eyebrows as she declared her dream of becoming a famous singer. She looked more like a mouse than a star performer and spoke like a country hick. But then… she opened her mouth. When she sang the first line of “I dreamed a dream,” from Les Miserables, the audience stopped breathing. Their eyes opened wide in shock. This was no mere country girl, this was Cinderella at the ball, transformed before their very eyes by the sound of her voice. The audience realized they’d misjudged her. As they continued to listen, every person there (and the 30+ million watching the YouTube video later that week) felt their hearts pried open. Something magical had just happened.

What made Susan Boyle famous overnight is the archetypal promise fulfilled in every rags to riches story. Assuming you as the hero/heroine, the story begins with the inner conviction that your current lowly circumstances (the story plot assumes they’re lowly) are not a true measure of your worth. You receive a call to action, an opportunity to prove yourself. The story promises that, if it’s the right opportunity and you do your best, you will shine brightly, and fame and fortune will be yours.

The true prize is knowing your value
Yet fame and fortune (and sometimes a trophy mate) are only external symbols of the true prize. The real prize is to know we have value (Edinger, 1972). That’s why, in non-Hollywood versions of the tale, external accolades are only the first part of the archetypal rags-to-riches transformation. What Susan Boyle needs to do next is every bit as important to her happily-ever-after as what she’s already done. In order for you (or anyone) to experience a happily-ever-after, the world’s recognition of your greatness (and Susan’s) must match your opinion of yourself. If it doesn’t, glory turns to dust in your mouth and, without an inner journey of transformation to get the two to match, self-sabotage is the result.

Listening to the sage
But even if you’re already in the middle of a self-sabotaging scheme, that doesn’t mean it’s too late to experience the happily-ever-after you desire. In fact, your own acts of self-sabotage can be like a wise sage whispering where you need to go next on your journey… that is, if you can listen to the wisdom within. Here’s one way to listen.

Self-sabotage occurs when you experience success and feel a gap between that success and your internal barometer of self-worth. Because you are constantly receiving feedback from both internal and external sources, one of your most important jobs as a human being is to merge these two streams of feedback into an “integrated” picture of the self (Deci & Ryan, 2000). When you find a discrepancy between what the outside world says about your worth and what your internal sources are telling you, you experience a very uncomfortable tension. This tension lingers until you resolve the discrepancy in one of three general ways:

1. You change your behavior to realign external and internal feedback (this might sound like a good option, but it could mean lowering your performance to match a poor self-concept, in other words, self-sabotage).
2. You undermine and/or ignore one of the feedback sources (Hollywood endings often end with this approach, sending the message to ignore your internal barometer and take the money, the glory, and your highly desirable new spouse, and run before anyone else figures out that you didn’t deserve any of the above.)
3. You find a higher synthesis in which both sources have validity (here’s the gold at the end of the self-transformation rainbow, but it means growing up and becoming psychologically mature. See below).

Quite simply, options one and two above do not lead to happy endings that last. The third option, however, has held our attention for about 2000 years of storytelling and still has merit today. In the language of self-regulation psychology, it means:

• Your behavior is directed by an entire hierarchy of goals, and the ones on top control all kinds of underlying processes (Carver & Scheier, 2000).
• One of the highest goals up the human hierarchy tree is the transformation of your ego-self to a mature human being who sees and cares about the bigger picture (Loevinger, 1976).
• This mature human being is defined as someone who can deflect personal desires for the greater good and can delay gratification in the service of higher goals.
• Your own self-sabotaging behavior can be quite valuable to you, if you use it to become aware that there is a discrepancy between how the world treats you and how you feel about yourself.

Becoming aware of a discrepancy like this doesn’t always feel good. Sometimes it feels like someone grabbing hold of your insides and giving them a good twist. But there’s always a sense of relief that accompanies this gut twist. Part of you knew something wasn’t quite right when all that external success was piled at your door. In this case, it’s not a matter of low self-esteem (a common reason offered by many cognitive psychologists), it’s a matter of using feedback discrepancies to guide internal transformation, and this, my friend, is the stuff of kings. For more on using feedback loops to guide personal transformation, keep reading. We'll look in detail at feedback loops after we fleshing out the seven story types.

Meet your monster

Story archetypes:
1. Overcoming the monster (this post)
2. Rags to Riches (April 30th post)
3. The Quest
4. Voyage and Return
5. Comedy
6. Tragedy
7. Rebirth

The monster’s jaws open wide; the throat is a hideous cavern of slime. Claws grip you, squeezing out your life force, shoving you toward the cavernous opening. It seems hopeless. The monster is huge, his strength otherworldly, his defenses impenetrable. He might be part human and part animal, or a cross of animals, or a supernatural being. Sometimes the monster is fully human, but even in those cases, he is deformed in some way, representing a darkened, maimed, warped, or demented version of humanity.
No matter what the monster looks like, his threat remains the same—to snuff the life out of something dear to you. In mythic tales, he was the dragon swooping down to threaten the entire village. Later, he became a supernatural villain (as in Dracula) or, with the advent of science fiction, H.G. Well’s host of Martians or Sigourney Weaver’s Alien. Now this dark force swoops down and threatens something equally previous.

What makes a modern-day monster?
As cosmic as the battle is between the light hero and the dark threat, modern day monsters can assume a surprising range of guises. Political monsters include Hitler, Stalin, Castro, and recently, Sadam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. These humans are depicted as dark, lacking humanity, and a threat to life as we know it. Another interesting modern monster is a disease (breast cancer) or the aggregation of a destructive human behavior (rampant consumerism). For example, in the same way mythic monsters swept across the globe devouring victims, middle-class consumerism now poses a monstrous threat to the victimized environment. It reminds me of the old Blob movies, in which the seemingly innocuous blob (a single person’s purchase or inappropriate disposal of garbage) grows in size with every victim it consumes, spreading its potential for devastation and becoming more threatening as it grows.

Although these modern monsters may seem far removed from Beowulf’s Grendel, modern-day heros must answer the same call. They must find the monster’s fatal flaw, a weak spot (often the monster’s sense of his own omnipotence and/or importance) and use that insight to wield a fatal blow. Shai Agassi, founder of A Better Place (about to launch the largest electric car infrastructure ever imagined), seems to be a modern-day hero striking such a blow. His monster? The collective behavior of car-driving humans whose gas-guzzling cars are adding to carbon emissions at a rate that threatens life as we know it on the planet. His insight? This collective human monster’s fatal flaw is its need for (should I say loyalty to) convenience and savings. By devising a way to offer drivers all over the world cheaper, more convenient electric cars, Agassi is posed to drive a knife deep into the monstrous side of increasing carbon-emissions. Will he succeed? It remains to be seen, but he’s definitely got a powerful weapon in his arsenal. We can only imagine the monster’s surprise when he fingers his mortal wound, and realizes it was inflicted through Agassi’s ability to turn convenience and savings into a mighty weapon.

What a monster is not
It’s tempting to see personal affronts and blockages as monsters. The boss who ignores your best efforts or who demeans you may seem monstrous. The boyfriend or girlfriend who dumps you may feel likewise dark and devoid of heart. But the key to the “Overcoming the Monster” tale is that the monster threatens more than your personal ego. Only so can the killing of the monster bring with it the secured promise of future life. If killing the monster is purely personal, and the task is undergone for personal ego gratification, the battle will not evoke transformation in the hero. Rather, the hero may becomes a new incarnation of the monster, even more destructive and terrible than the previous incarnation.

In search of a monster
It’s no wonder then that human beings search high and low for a cause, something greater than themselves that they can believe in, fight for and defend. No cause means no monster, and hence, no “salvation.” This salvation is known in psychological terms as the transformation of the ego, the development of a self-centered, pleasure-seeker into a mature individual who lives a moral, virtuous life. Such a transformation demands a cause, a monster to fight. In fact, the real toughie can be finding an appropriate monster, one whose destructive powers are threatening something that truly matters to you. You may have already found your monster. It may be an illness threatening someone you love. It may be an addictive behavior. It may be a selfish human failing. It may be a political tyrant. If you’ve found your monster, count yourself lucky, and head for the armory to prepare yourself for battle. If you haven’t yet found your monster, well, that means you’re beginning one of the darkest quests yet, a journey into the realm of meaninglessness, anarchy, and chaos. And you’re going to need a few magic aids to make your way through… so keep reading.

The seven basic plots

Simplified as it may seem, there are really only seven basic plots unraveling through all the stories in the past 2000 years of recorded history. These plots have been sorted different ways, but I prefer Christopher Booker’s assignations, as put forth in The Seven Basic Plots: Why we tell stories (Continuum, 2004). Here they are in summary. Subsequent blogs will look at each one in greater detail.

1. Overcoming the Monster: Anticipation builds as news of an ominous threat pervades the realm. As the action develops, the evil and destructive power of a life-threatening monster is seen. As Harker against the supernatural Count Dracula, the hero/heroine seems pitted against an impossible foe. This foe can only be overcome when the hero/heroine discerns the monster’s blind spot.

2. Rags to Riches: A young, untried hero/heroine is thrust out into the world. Things may be dire until the hero/heroine discovers an opportunity to prove her worth. Initial external success is enjoyed (think Cinderella enjoying her dance with the prince at the ball), but the story is not complete until the hero/heroine proves her inner worth and that allows her to enjoy both external and internal wealth (the prince recognizes Cinderella's worth even in her rags).

3. The Quest: As Odyesseus in Homer's Odyssey, the hero/heroine is called to complete a specific quest. He sets out on the journey with companions. Together, they encounter hostile terrain and a series of life-threatening ordeals. The hero/heroine survives these threats by relying on help from magical items or helpful spirits. The goal comes in sight. At this point, external help retreats and the hero/heroine must succeed through the final ordeal by relying on his own wits, strength, courage, and other abilities. This final ordeal is often half of the entire story.

4. Voyage and Return: Like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, a hero/heroine begins an unexpected voyage when she enters a realm of strange behaviors and/or beings. The voyage begins with a certain fascination with this strange world, yet fascination turns to fear as the hero/heroine realizes that her life is threatened in this place (as when Alice hears the queen yell, "Off with her head"). Just when the threat becomes too much to bear, the hero/heroine is whisked away from certain destruction to apparent safety. Whether this safety is real or not depends upon whether the hero/heroine has undergone a transformation while away.

5. Comedy: Here we encounter the complete happy ending. In the beginning of a comedy, the characters are knotted together in a confused tangle of misunderstandings. Because of the misunderstandings, people are separated from one another in ways that cause them grief. The pressure increases as the tangle tightens. Finally, things come to light that transform the identity and understanding of all the players. As in Shakespeare's rightly named Comedy of Errors, or the recent movie depiction, "Shakespeare in Love," the difficulties are overcome in a final sweep at the end when the characters are brought together in a joyful state of union. This union typically entails a male and female uniting, along with the bestowal of a kingdom.

6. Tragedy: A tragedy moves through five predictable stages. First, the hero/heroine sets out on a course while in a reckless mood in which he inevitably overlooks something important. Second, all seems well for awhile as the hero/heroine successfully obtains the object of his desire. Third, the hero/heroine becomes ensnared in an obsession that slowly takes over his life. He experiences frustrations in obtaining his desires. Fourth, the frustrations accumulate into a nightmare of doom, in which the hero/heroine crosses the line in commiting an act that takes him beyond the help of innocence and reflects back on when a happy ending was still possible. Fifth, the helpless, trapped hero/heroine is utterly destroyed. (You can follow these five stages just as easily through Nicholas Cage's character Ben in "Leaving Los Vegas" as in Shakepeare's MacBeth).

7. Rebirth: A young hero/heroine falls under the shadow of a dark power. Although the dark power may seem to recede or diminish for awhile, it returns full force in time, imprisoning the hero/heroine in a type of frozen living death (remember little Kay in the grip of the icy Snow Queen?). All seems lost, until the hero/heroine experiences an insight that thaws the icy grip of the dark power and allows him to regain access to his own warm-hearted goodness. The dark power is overthrown, and we view the ordeal as a means of giving birth to a more complete, autonomous being.

How are these seven basic plots all related to a single transformational process? And how does this process serve our biological, psychological and evolutionary needs? Keep reading this blog to find out.

Why we tell stories

Wake up and within two minutes you’re forming a story in your imagination. It might be a story about how you did or didn’t sleep well last night. It might be a story about an encounter—either desired or feared—that you’ll have during the day. It might be a story about why your child is not yet awake, even though the alarm for school should have gone off by now. Point is, we all navigate through the day telling ourselves and others stories because we have a unique human ability—we can conjure up into consciousness images of people and things that are not there. You may not think of your thoughts as imaginary, yet neuroscientists have proven (more on these guys later) that, when we’re in the middle of telling the good tale, we make up whatever “facts” we need to keep the story going. The brain’s left hemisphere works non-stop concocting hypotheses about why things are they way they are, and what might happen as a result. This story-telling ability allows us to anticipate events that may either prolong or cut-short our survival, and was very handy as we evolved. Stories make us human, and this blog explores the biological, psychological, and evolutionary nature of our narrative minds. It also provides tools for unpacking your own stories and for forming a life narrative that allows for a happy life, as well as a happy ending.
“We stand around in a ring and suppose; But the secret sits in the middle—and knows.” Robert Frost