Lived

I saw a quote on Facebook yesterday: I will not live an unlived life. It wasn't a famous person or at least not famous to me. It gave me a brain cramp. If you're living you are living a life. How do you un-live? Of course I understand the intent. I know that life can feel somnambulism and rote. It just seems like an inexact way to say what was intended. Aphorisms call for dubious metrics.

And then I realized that the book I've been talking about reading has In Praise of the Unlived Life in the title. But I think (having only read excerpts and a review) he's writing about what I mean. 

I know when I was in NC I felt zoned. I worked on puzzles and read books and made soup. I had numerous conversations about nothing interesting. There were days when I felt like running out the door. 

Now that I'm writing about it I realize that I'm not really sure why it bugged me as much as it did. It felt like a grand pronouncement with no substantive intention. It feels like we nod and smile and applaud these things and we don't really know what's being said.