Life’s too short but so’s a good book.
How incredibly short life seems the more you live it! And how incredibly long the present seems the less you’re living it up!
Time flies when you’re alive and time moves slowly when life is dull. But the tapestry of life unfolds in one direction, and in one direction only no matter how intricately embroidered.
More and more, how remarkably life seems to resemble a book, a printed one, not with hypertext links that you can choose to follow or not, return or change direction but printed pages that have to be read in one direction and one direction only.
How do we remember the past? Just like a good book. Mostly by remembering the highlighted bits, choosing to remember what suits us most or what we want to remember best and by forgetting the rest. The parts that were written most eloquently, that moved us most, stand out in memory.
The optimist will say there isn’t such a thing as a wasted word. Each word matters (be it in a good way or bad) vis-a-vis the whole.
Really?
The beginning of a book is always full of possibilities. But the better the book, the faster a read it seems, the more the hurtling towards the end, the more a desire to know how it all gets resolved. Far fewer moments to pause and think, perhaps not until the end, when layers of meaning might be revealed to past events if it’s a good book.
But will a purpose be revealed for every book? Will every little event matter? Or are some books just a collection of printed words? There isn’t any purpose at all nor was meant to be.
Is it a book at all then, or a life?
Anyone else been feeling that life’s like a book?
bottledworder 
I totally agree with the points you mention, especially when you say we remember our past like we remember books. The only difference I see is that there is always a resolve in a book, whereas life may never be fully answered or resolved. Great writing! 🙂
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Stephen Cave agrees that our lives are books.
“Just think of your life as a book”, Cave concluded before leaving the room. “The front and back cover are your birth and death, and the pages in-between are limited.”
http://www.theschooloflife.com/blog/2013/03/elke-lahousse-reviews-stephen-cave-on-immortality/
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I can control what happens in my books – not so much in real day-to-day life. There lies the difference.
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To follow (yet disagree with) your analogy, I think we write our own pages daily, each minute we choose our words wisely or unconsciously, each second we are given a billion different options of words to say or reflect on or act out that could alter the genre, the narrative arc, the character development, the plot, the pace, the voice, the direction. How then, can it be said that it unfolds only in one direction? Not forwards, surely.
I prefer to think of my life as movie, mainly so I can have a kick ass soundtrack!
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‘Billy’ Shakespeare might have been approaching the truth in that each of us act out our parts on the stage of life as directed by some inner angelic or demonic force…
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Life is a like a book that all the pages have been ripped out and thrown into the air. It’s not until we get to the end of life that we see where all the pages really fit 😀
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Some people have told me my life is a book and I should write, but I’m scared who might come out of the wood work.
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One day at a time, folks, and make them as good as you can. As an author I can revise, backspace,delete, enhance. In real life you have to take more care because sometimes “what’s done cannot be undone.” Life can be like a book. Open page by page to reveal what happens next.
Nice post!
My latest book The Catch was just released. One day at a time. . .Yippee!
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Not that much.
Books are rarely filled with coincidences, certainly not positive coincidences; life is rarely loaded with symbolism.
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Or is a book like life?
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Each book is about life, so it makes perfect sense that life would resemble a book–especially to those who do a lot of reading. Only one book, though, tells of how life began and how it can be lived to the fullest–the Bible. That is the book whose story of love and greatness I desire my life to resemble most!
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🙂
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Life is narrative – we tell ourselves stories to make ourselves real – loved your words in this post!
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Life itself is purpose. No matter how trivial, small, or grand. While every book may not be eloquent, there is someone in this world who will find it quite charming…
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Even when life seems dull it feels like it moves too fast, to me.
Look at it! More than three months into this year already!
It freaks me out that time seems to keep speeding up!
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Indeed. I can only agree with your musings. When life is fully lived it speeds along at such a rapid pace there’s hardly a moment to catch one’s breath. Conversely, when life is slow it seems an eternity from dusk to dawn, and the night can become a lifetime…
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We can try to find out what is written on the last page of our book by going to psychics and fortune tellers, but will we ever know?!
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Life does seem to be like a book! However, a book’s contents are fixed, they’re written and set by someone. What we read doesn’t change what lies ahead. While we may not know what’s ahead, somebody does. Is it the same with life? 🙂
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An interesting idea…and one I will ponder. We hold delightful memories to our heart so it is with favorite books. Discarded stories are soon forgotten until a phrase brings it back to haunt us much the same as hurtful memories. Without dark moments we do not cherish the lighter ones.As in life – books/stories can become friend or foe.
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so true. . . and beautiful!
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If a book is written and no one reads it, is it still a book? ( The old tree falling in the forest thing) I think life IS a book!
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good question. an unread book.:)
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