IN THE classic tragic plays, the good people fall from grace. Fate draws the hero (or heroine) toward an awful end because of some tragic flaw of character. Most often, the fatal weakness is an excess of some virtue, such as pride or determination.
Many of us are similar in that we see ourselves as especially selected victims of cruel fate. We suffer, it seems, of necessity, by being committed to some higher value, some creative force. Lacking perspective and humor, we take our situations too seriously and the absurdity of life not seriously enough. In a self-fulfilling prophesy, we participate in our own unhappy dramas, feeling that we do so through no real fault of our own.
Our confusion is understandable, because our excess of virtue has become a vice. It may be anger, sexual longing, pride, or the craving for power that began naturally, grew out of proportion, and ended up being destructive.
We insist that our situation is special, because it’s so hard to accept how ordinary we all are.