As a writer for this newspaper, a playwright of six plays, and an author of a novel, I confess that I don’t read enough because I’m too busy writing or doing that other thing called living life.

When I do get the opportunity to peruse through modern day short stories, I am perplexed to discover that a common theme is the existential idea that life carries no spiritual meaning and we are burdened by an endless number of decisions we must make that ultimately leave us unsatisfied. In a simpler way of explaining existentialism, “Life sucks and then you die.”

I recently read an award-winning story titled, “Fishing,” about a girl who comes back to her hometown to visit her sister, whom she never got along with while they were growing up. She gets to her sister’s house and hears noises coming from behind the locked doors and believes that someone is inside, but no one responds to her knocking. She calls her sister on her cellphone. “No one is in there,” her sister says. “I’ll meet you at the park after I’m done at work.”

The woman is convinced somebody is in the house so the story skillfully creates suspense. She finds a shovel and breaks in. She looks around the rooms and family pictures return memories of her sad childhood. She recalls that she and her sister had wanted a cat, but were always told no. But now her sister has one and its name is Fish. She hears the noise again and then she sees Fish meandering about the house.

The story ends when the woman lays the shovel on the kitchen table, sits down on the couch, and waits for her sister, who is expecting to meet her at the park. If there was more to the story, you’d have to believe the relationship with her sister will continue to be dysfunctional.

In another short story I recently read, the writer, who is a main character, builds the plot around a woman who tries to like eating tomatoes. In the end, she refuses to ever eat them again. The last sentence is about the writer. “Meanwhile, in the shower, I’m shaving my armpits - watching the dark hairs swirl down the drain.”

The existential formula scripts that the main character feels hope and perhaps some resolution about life, but is always left with despair at the end.

A movie I recently watched had an alcoholic basketball coach lead a losing team to great heights only to be fired when his assistant found a bottle of vodka in the coach’s office desk drawer.

The team dedicates their playoff game to their coach, but as they play, he is alone somewhere shooting a basketball on a playground court. Once again, any hope for the coach to attain resolution and contentment, and in this case, recovery from alcoholism, ends sadly where it had begun.

So, here’s my point. We know life is hard. It’s pockmarked with disappointments, failures, and even tragedy. Stories and screen productions often take us into the dark abyss where we can feel connected with other humans who struggle to find happiness. They can also take us on a journey where hope and faith succeed. These stories, like soothing music, can help us escape our daily burdens.

My favorite author, Mitch Album lifts the spirits of his readers with hope for humanity, but I think the literary scale overall is tilted toward gloom and doom as in all manners of media.

The other day my son was telling me about a video game he enjoys and I asked him if he had ever won the game. He said, “You can’t win because you have to die at the end.” I replied, “What? Why?” He said, “You either die honorably or dishonorably.” I was left speechless.

With depression for the American people at an all-time high, I understand why stories and movies reveal our monumental struggles.

That’s the price we pay for being alive.

In American literature, Willy Loman from “Death of a Salesman” kills himself because of guilt he had from a marital affair that caused his son who had found out about Willy’s infidelity, to not live up to his father’s expectations.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s character, Jay Gatsby is mistakenly shot to death after dedicating years of his life to win back Daisy, his love, who after hearing of his demise, uncaringly slinks back into her phony world of enormous wealth. It seems that from the 20th century until now, creative expression in words and in pictures drags us into a cesspool of futility.

But in the early 19th century, some poets like Walt Whitman, a man who saw the carnage of the Civil War first hand, put his words into songlike celebrations of life.

Novelist Mark Twain wrote of a young white boy who befriends an escaped black slave, showing us that we can have empathy for each other despite the color of our skin.

I tell myself that if I want to feel the plight of human misery, I can just watch the TV news every night. If I want to fall into the depths of darkness, I can sit in a dimly lit room reading Emily Dickinson poetry about loneliness, death, and lost love.

But that’s not me. Give me a “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book. Let me be enlightened by Reader’s Digest.

Heck, I’ll even read a dime store romance because I know the formula is always upbeat. Man meets girl. Man breaks up with girl. Man and girl get back together and live happily ever after. It may be fantasy, but happy ending stories do put a smile on our faces and God knows we all need more reasons to smile.

Rich Strack can be reached at richiesadie11@gmail.com