Life Imitating Art—is it the Sincerest Form of Flattery?

The Bickersons need to know. When they come face to face.

” I cry and cry for mimicry?” asked Mr. Bickerson

“I can read your face like a book.” replied Mrs. Bickerson.

The life story unfolds, unravels, un kempt, un certain because the Bickersons simply did not understand one another. They surely knew how to bicker. And bicker they did. About the small things. About some big things. Ironically, and by grace-of-god-godily not about the biggest things.

In the meantime, the bickering took its toll. And tolls it took. On his toils. On her toils. In different ways. Different stays. Different plays.

Negating one at the expense of the others. Near depletion of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Individually. Together. The breakdown had begun before either of them even had a chance to breathe.

Oftentimes one Bickerson had more “support” in their corner to support their “cause”. Those persons generally being selfish and opportunistic. Without human regard. So called business minded in order to keep the other Bickerson at arm’s length.

Yeah. Right. We’ll go with that facade.

The other Bickerson just trying to stay afloat. Not really realizing that the personal life titanic hit the ice berg until stood freezing out in the cold. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Indeed.

You see you simply cannot kid a kidder. Many have tried. Many have gotten,

Lost.

In themselves. Thinking or pretending. Have fun with that.

You still cannot have my cookie and eat it too.

What is playing out in the airwaves and stories and video replays of our lives is now testing who we are. Boy oh boy some folks are singing like a canary. Possibly to throw onus off of oneself—prove we did nothing wrong, didn’t think anything wrong, would never think what we did or saw or shot on camera is or isn’t, was or wasn’t wrong.

Act like we have no idea what you are talking about.

Yeah. Right.

To boot. We make certain to do so on camera—to talk about the wrongs of others—to make certain we are self-righteous enough to do so. Self righteous enough to finger point and point the finger at you because hey, it was not me on camera doing anything wrong it was you.

And I have a lot to say about what you are doing wrong. Not nearly as much to say about myself, because hey, I did nothing wrong, you did. I am comfortable with me.

Just when ya may think the fight is over. It may actually have just begun. How do you like them apples? I did not think so.

The Bickersons continue to quarrel, bicker and withdraw. Solely. In an attempt to keep it together. There are, however invisible parasitic family members and non family members “helping” them along.

Insidious.

In 1889, Oscar Wilde opined in his essay, “The Decay of Lying” that “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.” In the essay, written as Platonic dialogue, Wilde holds that anti-mimesis “results not merely from Life’s imitative instinct, but from the fact that the self-conscious aim of Life is to find self expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realize that energy.” (wk)

”What is found in life and nature is not what is really there, but is that which artists have taught people to find there, through art.” (wk)

Ok. I get it.

But does that include intentional acts of emotional distress?

Yes. No. Maybe.

Just wonderin’

The Bickersons need to know.

John Scottus Eriugena, ninth-century theology coined the term “the fantastic hyperbole of the ancient sagas”. (wk)

Let’s elevate the blarney and see where it goes.

George Bernard Shaw had another take. In his preface to “Three Plays” he wrote, “I have noticed that when a certain type of feature appears in painting and is admired as beautiful, it presently becomes common in nature; so that the Beatrices and Francescas in the picture galleries of one generation come to life as the parlor-maids and waitresses of the next.”

(Keeping in mind this was pre-Botox era)☺️

So lest we all jump in our cars and race off to Hollywood. We are not all actors and actresses in our own lives, destined to be on the small screen, medium screen, big screen. It is not a choice of yours to point and shoot of and at me unless you have my permission.

Stay out of my business and I will stay out of yours. Unless I ask. I withdrew from your fight long ago. Me, my marbles and my cookies that is. I cry and cry for mimicry. I’ve been spouted this for a long time. No one believed me. I could read the flashes across another’s face and it changed who I was and changed my behavior in my relation to that person. Incapable of spewing anything but empathy for your plight. Plain and simple. No matter who you are.

In evolutionary biology, mimicry is an evolved (NOTE: evolved) resemblance between and organism and another object, often an organism of another species.(wk)

Hint 🐶🐶🐶🐶 Not 😾😾😾😾

Mimicry may evolve between different species, or between individuals of the same species. Often, mimicry functions to protect (NOTE: protect) a species from predators, making it an anti-predator adaptation. The resemblances that evolve (NOTE: evolve) in mimicry can be visual, acoustic, chemical, tactile, or electric, or combinations of these sensory modalities.(wk)

Mimicry may be to the advantage of both organisms that share a resemblance, in which case this is a form of mutualism, or mimicry can be to the detriment of one, making it parasitic or competitive.

Take my cookie and go home. Alone. Fine by me.

Warning: The evolutionary convergence between groups is driven by the selective action of a signal receiver or dupe.

Dupe.

As in I dupe you. You’ve been duped. Life is good. But. Nope. I have been aware of your motivations. Of and about my nuclear family. And I will not let you “in” just because you want to invade what is not yours. That is a form of criminality I wish to not engage in. With you or with any other parasitic “influencer”.

The Bickersons will continue to bicker. But they also hold true the stake in and of their own lives. They just did not know how or what to do.

Bring it on.

.