he fire of the Earth burns with a radiance, emitting emotion and sense. It warms those whom it touches, and lights the way for those who cannot see. Dwellers walk in its presence daily, and share its essence with those whom it cannot reach. Yet very rarely do they sift the ashes, and find the brimstone that lies as a fuel for the world it tries warm. Few look for scraps it leaves behind, even when the world scatters the ashes as they pass by the flame. Those we see huddled next to the flame - poets, writers - all wish to find and underlying meaning to everything they (we) accomplish, create, and perform.
Take what you know by a grain of salt because not everything is set in stone. How can you be sure what something means is what it actually intends to mean? Does every movie's meanings actually fit your premise of it? How about any song? Pick one. Think it through.
The world is full command and action, both literal and metaphorical. The question is, where is it at and what does it mean? Literally, it's everywhere. A stop sign says 'stop', you fill your car up with gas when it's empty, and you go to work. It ensures safety, convenience, dependability, compatibility, reason, right, and wrong. Everyone knows it and does it, without whimsical thoughts or desires. It's easy to look at flowers and sunsets because they're beautiful. But beautiful things are beautiful because we look at them as beautiful things. You wouldn't look at a dead tree from a literal standpoint as being beautiful.
The dead tree is not beautiful, but it is pretty, it being delicately attractive without truly being beautiful, and attractive being pleasing to the senses. However so is beautiful, but literally.
But it the tree literally pretty? It would have to be attractive without being beautiful, which pleases to the senses. Therefore it would have to be completely displeasing to the senses while still retaining its attractiveness, something attractive literally stands for.
But the tree encompasses everything like it, in a way that is not normally seen by many people. It manifests the beauty of some things it seeks to represent. The tree is beautiful, metaphorically. Metaphorically, everything it manifests is beautiful. Beautiful is what the tree stands for; it's not dead, just not alive, literally. Metaphorically its alive, but manifests all things not living. The tree is not a tree, but rather an ambiguous representation of what it represents.
You have to scrutinize every little thing to understand what it truly means. You can looks at something literally, but miss what was actually presented. Don't take life literally. Don't stop to look at a dead tree either; look at everything else as you would as well. Take a metaphorical point-of-view on something at least once before fully understanding it.
Life is a dead tree. It lacks significance if you take it too seriously and don't stop to analyze what is there. Not until you realize the full potential can it truly provide the best results, because it's not until you chop it down and use it to ignite the fire it was intended to kindle.