One Cannot Live Synecdoche

I fear I have lost my literary meaning, and I suspect I am all the better for it.

You see, for most of my life I've unconsciously (undeniably) believed that my life was a parallel to fiction. The ups and downs of everyday experience were the very pieces, the very stuff of literature. I thought, well this is how every character must feel in their story. Literature plays out in it's retelling, but the actors are very much alive (if written well), right? And so, my liveliness is a predicate for literature. By living my life has a point, and that point exists in it's retelling, even if it's to myself, or even to you.

Why only in retelling? Well, that's obvious. Living makes for poor poetry, poor prose. It is the synecdoche, the accumulation and coalescence of experience, honed into relatable form. David Foster Wallace tried to break away from the core of literature, the need to distill it down until it can be universally digested. Look where that got him--and don't get me wrong here, it breaks my heart to say that, but look where it got him. All of art is synecdoche, each instance of art (that is to say, any thing that can be meaningfully called "art") is meant to convey more than the parts that make it up. The medium, the timing (i.e. date created), the subject, the style, the decision to leave that out. These things add up to something that is much larger; they portray a piece of the whole as the whole. Synecdoche *gestures broadly*.

But one cannot live synecdoche. One must gather it over time, reach a critical mass, and (v.) art. Or in my case, (v.) literature. It is foolish to think that I could ever play out literature on a day-to-day basis. Of course, you and I can listen for when the chords of life sing in resonance with literary aspects, catching those moments of character change, not just as a personal experience, but as an experience viewed. Catching moments of absurdity, the absurdity of life--literary to the core, of course. These get written down in a note on my phone--no, you can't read them.

You see, I believe many things. But some things I believe in practice. A unique thought that maybe you haven't heard of before: beliefs are like pens. They are easy to come by, should be used and refilled as long as they remain useful, then discarded when they fail to hold water (read as: "ink"). So I believe "in practice" by choosing to believe something, and then letting that belief's "truth" play out in the long term. I leverage my experience in belief, and experience requires time. And one of these things I believe in practice is: my life is going to be the best-it-can-be when my expectations most align with reality.

This is what finally killed the notion of my personal literary existence. As my expectations of reality began to align, I had to battle with the very ideas that allowed me to see literature in the world. What I found, and what you may happen to see in yourself, was that I postured into literary aspects. I formed myself, unconsciously, into the forms I found familiar. Not by willing it, necessarily, but by lack of attention, by watching the world and not myself.

I hope you can understand this. I hope you can get something out of this. My life is equal parts rote, charming, thrilling, boring, exhausted, brimming to overflow. Literature does not exist in my life, it is simply based on it.