I Wish This Would Happen In Real Life

Which is not to say, I wish the ails of the world this author created to fill mine; I wish it upon me and my loved ones. 

No. 

What we mean is we wish to have something we want more than anything; a story to tell, a prince or a princess to save, and an adventure that calls to us, something for which we will risk facing our greatest fear.  We want to go to hell and come out on top, and be better for it.  We want the imagination and the morality and the love and the brotherhood and the bravery that abounds in those worlds to transpire in our own lives.  We want to be heroes.  Even if we’re marginally insane ones. 

But those wishes cannot come to fruition without the pain that accompanies them. 

After all, what is a protagonist without conflict?  A hero without his inner turmoil?  A villain without some echo of what it means to be human? 

In order to go to hell and back, we must first feel hell. 

So in essence, we are wishing pain and misery and anguish upon ourselves and our loved ones.  Only we want to live.  We want to make it to the end.  And we want to believe, against all hope, against all proof, against all reason, against everything that shattered our dreams as we grew older, that perhaps our ending will be happy too.