Tea Time No. 28: Comedy or Tragedy?

Drinking: Oolong Tea

Listening to: I Turn My Camera On – Spoon

I watched Stranger Than Fiction again the other night. The protagonist in the film begins to hear a narrator speaking about him and he’s concerned when he hears her say, “Little did he know…. he was going to die.” He seeks counsel of a literature professor, played perfectly by Dustin Hoffman, who advises him to take notes throughout the day to determine whether the story he is living in is a comedy or tragedy.

In one scene, he’s awkwardly talking to a girl, trying to impress her. Each time they have an exchange, he marks in a little moleskin notebook a point for Comedy or Tragedy.  At the end of the day, he has a page full of tick marks under Tragedy. He’s just certain that everything he has said all day has been wrong. As he opens the door to leave, he looks over the list and says to her, “This will probably sound like gibberish to you, but I think I may be living in a tragedy.” It’s a simple enough moment, but it is so sad and universal to me when it happens. It’s the conclusion that is so easy to reach at the end of a really bad day.

I sometimes wonder if my mental tally of successes and failures can be trusted.