The Muddle!

The longer I live, the longer I think about my life, (and the lives of those around me), the fewer prejudices and/or preconceptions I seem to carry with me. They are all demolished by my experience of life. The things I thought I knew or understood, I no longer do. The certainties I was hoping to base a life on, seem to vanish before my eyes. All it takes is a little concentrated attention, and I begin to realize that what I thought of as certain, is actually pretty fungible. Oh yeah, there's death, there's always death, but that kind of blows a hole in everything else.

Do we read the world as one grand metaphor? Or a mountain, or endless river of metaphors? Is everything actually a sign or symbol of something else?

Or do we read the world literally? Is everything exactly and only what it is? Are there no signs, no symbols? Only the literal reading of a life of stuff?

Or do we read it all metaphorically and literally? Or is the answer "none of the above?"

That's the kind of muddle that whirls around in my head...