I think the conflation of 'real' with 'miserable' has something in common with the way that young adult books are praised for their realism when they include characters who suffer ever[y] trauma known to man all at once, or why people are so into memoirs of horrible lives. The idea that horrible things are a reality for somebody somewhere (or, millions of people everywhere, as we are often told) seems to weigh heavily on people whose lives are not horrible, in a way that convinces them that the answer is to voluntarily give up (or claim to give up) all their pleasures in exchange for horrors. In some ways, maybe an ancient impulse--asceticism, for example. But in some way, maybe new, since I don't think that ascetics don't deny the reality of a better life, and I've always associated asceticism w/isolation, not weird downtrodden group identification. Also, I don't think asceticism was ever hip.

Labels: first world problems