If you were to choose by which frame of mind you will look at reality and live according to that perspective, would you rather life be a fairy tale, a novel, or a poem?
Perhaps, many of us would prefer living in a fairy tale, in a world of fantasy and magic, where the impossible can become possible, only limited by what your imagination can conjure up. Living in a novel seems no different than how we are currently living our real lives. Day in and day out, it's just a reflection of our reality. Living life as a poem seems a bit tricky, since poems are more fluid, and they don't have a certain end in mind.
Now, instead of having an aspirational perspective about the topic, if we take a different approach and look at our lives and see how we actually live, the question takes on a different form. If we were to describe our lives right now, would we say that it is a fairy tale, a novel, or a poem?
I have learned that, no matter how much I hope or plan or expect things to happen in my life, things often don't go the way we want them to. And so, the question then is, how do we respond to the different circumstances, sometimes maddening and at other times, blissfully surprising, that we encounter in life? How do we look at reality and inwardly, where do we position ourselves in the grand scheme of things?
That was the question that G.K. Chesterton pondered on in a portion of his essay collection Tremendous Trifles, quoted by The Marginalian in this article. Essentially, we can either look at our lives as a fairy tale, in that, we see ourselves as sane and rational surrounded by a chaotic and wild world, or as a novel, in which the world around us is mundane and trifling, while we are the odd ones out.
As I thought about it, it felt that the duality between these two perspectives seems insufficient to capture the fullness of reality and our response to it, whether that makes us sane or not.
On the one hand, there are times when it feels as though the world or fate has conspired against us, foiling our attempts at living peacful lives in every juncture and crossroads. And at times, it does seem as though life just offers little to stimulate our imagination and our capacity for adventure, and it drives us mad how routine everything has become, and we want to escape it somehow.
But these two scenarios are merely two of many different circumstances that can happen in life. We may be making rational decisions and things will go our way. And we may be out seeking adventure of some sort and we are thrown into the unknown, left to fend for ourselves and quench our thirst for spice in life. If we put these different scenarios under one of the storytelling frameworks, then we would be hard-pressed to categorize it under one or the other because it appears to be a mixture of the two.
Then, there's the third perspective in approaching this problem of reality and sanity. And that's the way of the poem. Whitman suggests that by breaking free from the "rules of life" that do not fit or do not work for you, then you will be able to live like a great poem. And I take that to mean that Whitman urges people to express their individuality without fear or bias of what rules of structure, rhythm, or composition dictate. Let your mind run free and take everything in as they come.
Whether you see your life right now as a fairy tale, novel, or a poem, I think what it all boils down to is our search for meaning in life. At the end of the day, we all want to live for something, and we frame the external factors and aspects in our lives according to that thing for which we strive. And so, try to find what it is that gives your life meaning and devote your life to it. Hopefully, everything else will fall into place.
(Image credit: Denise Jans/Unsplash)