Life as Metaphor

It is said art imitates life, and sometimes life, in turn, imitates art. But the magnitude of these statements is grossly underestimated.

Jung knew, when he unearthed the archetypes from ancient literature and timeless storytelling patterns, that he had discovered something profound, but even he had no idea exactly how deep that rabbithole goes.

Archetypes are patterns, and the root of patterns is invariably found in the principles and Parameters that define the system by which they may emerge. In other words, find the conditions for the pattern, and you will find the reason it exists. This core concept applies to literally everything. Especially us - wayward pattern-machines draped in flesh and bone.

It stands to reason then, that if one were to invert the relationship between fiction and reality, we could reverse-engineer an understanding of our own conditions. That is to say - repeating patterns in fiction reveal a meta-narrative in what we consider as "real life". Those patterns would not exist in fiction if they had no real-life basis at all. Some may require a large amount of abstraction to make sense, but that doesn't deny that even an idea in the mind of a writer must exist in some capacity regardless.

Since every Thing is a combination of other Things, with the sole exception of the very concept of Creation itself, even things that have yet to be conceived in the mind of a Human being must already exist. For example, if we find a perfect cure for cancer, it will either be a combination of Things we know of that already exist, or it will be a Thing we haven't discovered yet. Either way, it exists. Independently from us, as all things do.

"There is nothing new under the sun." - except the sun is hardly an apt point of scale. It should be: "There is nothing new within Creation."

Life is a story, and every story has themes. The themes of your life will fit into other, greater themes, all under the umbrella of the Arch-themes, which are the 8 Primeval 'cognitive functions'. Everything that is exists in a spectrum of micro and macro. Fiction is a reflection of both of these states at once, and when they are reflected back at us, we can become more easily aware of them.

By engaging with these themes, and by engaging with one's own life as though it is a story unfolding as a composite of these themes; in recognition that you are a composite of the same themes, it is possible to achieve a level of healthy detachment that excedes even Buddhist teachings.

Simply put, literary analysis, at a high enough level of abstraction, is the most important field of study if the aim is to understand the Logic and Parameters of reality, and by a wide margin.