The Narrative of a life. It seems our narrative is in the hands of an "unreliable narrator." How post-modern! There is a narrative arc - born, lived, died. But then there are all those little detours and details.
Then again, some say that we are our own narrator, that we are the authors of our own destinies. Still this doesn't let us out of the conundrum. We may be be the authors, but we too are unreliable, unknowable, inscrutable. Even to ourselves!
We end up doing all kinds of shit that we can't explain. Oh yes, we try to explain our actions. We come up with all kinds of reasons why we did this or that, but really, there is no rhyme or reason for much of what we do...
So we live in a story where we can't even trust our own inner monologue, our motivations and explanations. It is sort of a Fun House tour of giggles and frowns. Some really funny shit happens, and then of course, death and tragedy sneaks up and grabs us too.