Dwain Northey (Gen X)

There’s something almost exhausting about the way human beings tell stories. We seem incapable of letting a story simply be good. Somewhere in the narrative, somebody has to be the villain, something has to go terribly wrong, and lurking behind whatever happiness we manage to achieve is the inevitable possibility that everything could fall apart.

Maybe that is human nature. Or maybe it is some psychological imprint so deeply embedded in us that we don’t even recognize it anymore.

We have apparently decided that a story isn’t really a story unless something goes wrong.

Shakespeare understood this centuries ago. The difference between comedy and tragedy isn’t necessarily that one contains happiness and the other contains sadness. A tragedy is often a comedy that doesn’t make it all the way back around. The characters fall, the circumstances deteriorate, and the story ends before the circle can be completed.

Apparently, we liked that idea so much that we made it the template for everything.

History certainly follows the formula.

We don’t simply talk about civilizations and what they accomplished. We talk about the wars, the betrayals, the tyrants, the genocides and the inevitable collapse. Even when something genuinely remarkable happens, we seem compelled to attach an asterisk to it explaining how somebody suffered along the way.

Religion does it too.

Salvation is difficult to define without damnation. Heaven needs a hell. Good requires evil. Redemption requires something from which we need to be redeemed. The light becomes more meaningful because we’ve established that darkness exists.

And I understand the philosophical argument. Contrast gives things meaning. If everything is good all the time, perhaps eventually “good” becomes meaningless because there is nothing against which to measure it.

But sometimes I wonder if we’ve taken that concept a little too far.

Look at artificial intelligence.

The conversation about AI almost immediately becomes: What if it destroys humanity? What if it becomes Skynet? What if it becomes Ultron? What if it decides we’re the problem?

And yes, those questions are worth asking.

But somewhere along the way, we’ve managed to make the potential catastrophe the headline and the potential benefit the footnote.

Instead of asking, “What extraordinary things might this technology allow human beings to accomplish?” we seem almost compelled to ask, “What’s the worst thing that could possibly happen?”

Then, rather than designing the technology so that those dangers are minimized, we spend an enormous amount of time imagining the apocalypse.

It’s as if we believe identifying the monster is more important than building a better house.

There is an important distinction between preparing for a negative outcome and becoming obsessed with one. We absolutely should anticipate unintended consequences. We should build safeguards. We should regulate dangerous technologies when necessary. We should learn from history.

But there is a difference between planning for the worst and assuming the worst is the story.

Maybe that distinction is what bothers me.

We seem to have developed a cultural reflex in which every possibility of progress immediately requires a warning label.

The medical breakthrough will save millions—but what if it is abused?

The new technology will make life easier—but what if it takes everyone’s jobs?

The political reform might make government more representative—but what if someone exploits it?

The scientific discovery could solve a problem—but what if it creates another one?

Eventually you start wondering whether we’re actually afraid of failure or simply uncomfortable with optimism.

Perhaps part of this comes from evolution. Humans who noticed the rustling in the bushes and thought, That’s probably nothing didn’t necessarily leave as many descendants as the ones who thought, Holy shit, that’s probably a tiger.

Our brains are apparently hardwired to notice threats.

The problem is that there aren’t many actual tigers hiding in the bushes anymore.

Instead, we have 24-hour news, social media, political outrage, dystopian movies, conspiracy theories and an internet capable of delivering every conceivable catastrophe directly into our pockets before breakfast.

The psychological mechanism that once kept us alive can now keep us perpetually anxious.

And perhaps that’s why we keep inventing villains.

A villain gives the story structure. A villain gives us someone to blame. A villain gives us something to fear and, more importantly, something to defeat.

But not every story needs a villain.

Sometimes the story is simply that something worked.

Sometimes a technology solves a problem without creating another civilization-ending problem.

Sometimes people cooperate because cooperation actually benefits everyone.

Sometimes a scientific discovery makes life better.

Sometimes a political decision improves something.

Sometimes somebody does something kind simply because being kind is a good thing to do.

There doesn’t always have to be a sinister motivation hiding underneath it.

There doesn’t always have to be a monster waiting in Act III.

I’m not suggesting we abandon skepticism or pretend darkness doesn’t exist. That’s just another form of foolishness. History has plenty of evidence that human beings are capable of doing horrible things.

But perhaps we’ve become so accustomed to looking for the darkness that we’ve forgotten to recognize the light when it is standing directly in front of us.

Maybe that’s the real psychological imprint: We trust danger more than we trust goodness.

We believe the other shoe is going to drop.

We expect the happy ending to have a catch.

We look at something new and immediately ask how it might destroy us rather than how it might help us.

And maybe that is why so many of our stories feel darker than they need to be.

We keep writing the villain into the script.

Perhaps every story doesn’t need one.

Perhaps sometimes the story can simply be about people figuring something out, making something better, helping one another and moving forward.

No demon.

No apocalypse.

No tyrant.

No secret conspiracy.

No inevitable tragedy waiting around the corner.

Just a good thing happening.

I realize that probably makes for terrible Shakespeare.

But honestly, after several thousand years of villains, betrayals, damnation, dystopias and people screaming that the end is near, I’m beginning to think humanity could use a few boringly optimistic stories.

Maybe not every comedy needs to flirt with tragedy.

Maybe not every light needs darkness standing behind it.

Maybe sometimes good can simply be good.

And maybe, just for once, we could let the damn story end there.