A human life is a universe.  It is (re)written:  she who saves one life saves the world.  The death toll numbers you see on corporate TV are from Stalin’s calculus– a million ended lives are an abstraction.  For every American journalist with a name whose face we see on video before a psychopath cuts his head off, thousands of nameless, faceless children and old people are killed in the name of fighting beheading psychopaths.   These kids and their grandparents have names, faces, universes, of course, but it is much more comfortable to think of them as collateral damage, necessary deaths to, theoretically, prevent our own murder, you dig?  Better not to dwell on what the nation does in our names, you say?  OK.  

So lie back on the couch and tell me the metaphor that best describes your life at the moment.  

“Waiting for a cat to shit to determine whether I’ll be able to go home today or continue waiting here for the cat to shit, possibly take him back to the vet tomorrow.”  

What?  

“He had diarrhea for a few days, I took him to the vet Saturday.  He took a loose crap Saturday night and then– nothing.   He’s regular as an atomic clock with that short digestive tract and his habit of waiting til Sekhnet gets back before hunching to uncork his turds into the sand, kicking the sand a bit until Sekhnet diligently scoops the shit away.  She calls herself the Elephant Sweeper, the one who follows the elephants in the circus parade with a shovel and bucket.   She got home yesterday, nothing.  Overnight and so far today, and it’s going on dinner time 48 hours later, nada.”

So a cat doesn’t have his daily bowel movement and you are stuck in place?

“Afraid so.  The vet’s girl said to call tomorrow mid-day if the cat hasn’t gone by then.  Trouble is, nobody will be here until late tomorrow night.  The cat could have real problems by then.”

So you are acting out of concern for another living creature you are attached to rather than in your own, strict self-interest?  

“Afraid so. The phrase is really apt, I am afraid.  Afraid of this metaphor that so accurately captures what my life has reduced itself to, with the help of an unrealistic goal of being the director of my own destiny.  Today my destiny is to wait until a cat takes a crap.  Not the destiny I had in mind for myself when I went to bed last night.”  

Not entirely fair, this waiting for the cat to pass some turds, while on the surface not a bad metaphor for your slow-motion, extreme close-up life at the moment, is not expressed in the way most fair to you.  Be fair.  

“This act of kindness to an animal who cannot help himself, while seemingly sentimental to some, is also an act of kindness to Sekhnet, worried sick about the handsome little animal she affectionately serves.  There is nothing I can do at my place that I can’t do here, or little, anyway.  I like the waiting for a cat to shit metaphor, though, it fits so perfectly.”  

Fits your self-mocking foolery, maybe, but not the larger purpose of supporting your powerful but delicate dreams and putting them out into the world.  

“True, my powerful but delicate dreams do not appear in the flattering chiaroscuro light they deserve when the metaphor is expressed this way.  I am clearly more than a man waiting for a cat to shit, although I am also, clearly, a man waiting for a cat to shit.”

Just so.