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  1. Veering slightly to the side of the topic... "Life imitating Art" is a concept whose existence illustrates a very sad state of things. Life is not an imitation of anything. Art, by definition, is manmade and derivative of his concepts and experiences, which only can originate by virtue of his living. Of Life and Art clearly Art is derivative and Life foundational. The sad fact which the statement "Life Imitating Art" represents is a paucity of selfhood and experience. We've all heard it said as though a truism, and by very intelligent and influential people, sentiments to the effect that "Life is like a play" "Life is poem" Life is wonderful story", it has its ups and down but it has to be that way ... a drama isn't drama without conflict etc. Joseph Campbell once said that Life is a "wonderful opera", "it hurts" but we should "participate in it". [The sentiments I here am identifying here exclude the opposite type of pronouncements by insipid and pompous people in the art community that have lost all grasp of reality] These heartfelt sentiments of Life and Art are proffered as inspiration and I do not doubt the earnestness with which they are stated... but they suffer from the most tragic of observations mixed with a false premise. The tragic observation is that many people do not engage with life, are not fully alive but instead are going through the motions, in a confused fog of learned helplessness and despair. Not knowing what life is, they aspire to a representation of life, Art, and the device used, is to imagine themselves in a story, or that the life that they could and should be leading is like a story. The false premise is that it is possible for life to be derivative of art, and that art is in any sense primary to life. Art can show what life is and some art can show what life can and ought to be. In that sense a real Life can draw inspiration from Art, and Art is crucial to man's mental well being, but in the end Life imitates Life, and Art is but a mediator. As Joseph Campbell once said, "A vital life vitalizes". Note: I have made reference to Jo a few times because he was a scholar of Story, of Myth, and its origins and relationship to Man and his Life throughout history and around the world.
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