"the end"

I seem to have loved stories forever. Part of the reason is that stories had a "the end" to append and digest. There's a 'thunk' as the last page is turned, the last sentence read. That's it. That's the end. Finis. Wouldn't it be nice if life were like stories ... compact, wrapped-up, digestible ... something you can hold in the palm of your hand. The end. Complete.

But of course, nothing is ever complete.

When I was a kid, it didn't take me long before I recognized after the Saturday-afternoon movie binge that I wondered about this western or that war movie ... "yeah, but what happened AFTER the end?" after the guy kisses the gal, after the sun sets so perfectly?

Stories have an end. They are as satisfying as a good chocolate mousse. Thunk!

But, but.....

Why can't the satisfying thunk be extended further, into the great out-there of real life? Can't there be an extension of John Wayne's heroic and inspiring good guy who does right?

After the end....

Plato, some say, put the words in his teacher Socrates' mouth: "The unexamined life is not worth living." If this is true, what is life like when life IS worth living?

No thunk, I think. But the nostrum itself is glowing with ... uhhhh.... a cozy thunk-dom.

Oh well....