User blog comment:Holokami/Character Sheet: Bunnibun Bubunbun/@comment-29564364-20170205080955/@comment-4867780-20170205215027

I know right ? ^ ^ Deep down, all we really need are happy feelings. Yet other people's happiness is strangely boring, so we paradoxically end up lusting for conflict in fiction.

That's something I never managed to really understand. Since fiction is inherently escapism, why not simply create happy worlds and vicariously enjoy them ? Why don't drama-less happy stories have more success, when they have every reason to ? Why this yearning for dramatic tension ?

Is the human mind simply addicted to stress is some twisted way ? Or just too self-centered to really empathize with others' happiness, hence the boredom and narrative sadism that ends up staging suffering for entertainment ? One way or another, the answer can probably be summed up by "because we suck" ^ ^;

I do admit to enjoying a number of tension-rich settings/stories, but mostly by lack of viable alternatives in the end. There's no fictional work I relish as much as good people getting the happiness they deserve.