By Rachel Jane Insull
I hate bad endings. To anything. And by a bad ending I mean any ending that is sad, or heartbreaking, or depressing, or makes you cry tears, not of joy, but of despair and agony.
Only when I have to I expose myself to such endings (like in ninth grade English when I had to read Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. I never really got the point to that one). But what I truly have yet to understand is why anybody else would want to either.
Take the incredible success of James Cameron’s epic romance, Titanic. When most people discover that I have yet to see the film, they usually gasp in disbelief, but I am completely in the dark as to why anybody would want to watch a film over three hours long about love and happiness that ends in the death of Leonardo DiCaprio and thousands of others on board, leaving Kate Winslet to live the rest of her life sad and miserable.
I’m sorry, but no thank you. Is there something that I’m missing here? Why in the world would anybody want to sit through that?
Over the years, I have made sure that I am not exposed to such endings simply by knowing the conclusion before I even begin.
Take books for example. With every book that I have ever read, I have made sure to read the last few pages first, just to make sure that the tone and attitude in which the characters are speaking or are being described is not tragic or upsetting and that the story concludes on a somewhat happy or positive note.
Upon the release of the final Harry Potter installment, I rushed to the bookstore and read the last chapter just to make certain that I wouldn’t be reading 759 pages just to have Harry end up dead in the end.
When I got to Breaking Dawn, the very last book in the Twilight saga, I read the last page to make sure that Bella ended up with Edward and not with Jacob, which would have been the absolute worst ending possible.
I think that many people find my resistance to bad endings immature and somewhat childish, but the way I see it, our reality is already filled up with enough of unhappiness.
In my life, as in the lives of most people, I have had to face a fair amount of death, disappointment, sadness, and heartbreak.
Think about all the things going on in this world in general. War, global warming, environmental catastrophes, the list goes on and on.
They are problems that we cannot escape from, so why would I want to expose myself to such horrible instances in what little free time that I have to sit down and watch a movie or read a book?
It is an odd trait of mine, but definitely not one that I apologize for because it is my attempt at searching for the good and positive in this world, which is something so many people seem to be incapable of.
But I truly believe that if more of us put more effort into focusing on the good endings instead of the bad, this planet would be a happier place.