Life as Literature

Listening to Terence McKenna today & the topic of 'Life as Literature' got me thinking. He suggests that life is not a story, as most of us consider it, with a sensible beginning & end.
I tend to treat my life as though having a good enough plan will result in the positive progression of my story & will get me even closer to that end where you look back without regret & pass gracefully.
I suppose I know better. The idioms my grandmother spoke & penned for me are the greatest tools I have had to make sense of the nonsensical. Basic rules to live by. A mental net that I could cast out to pull it all together.
I know that life is more fluid than a story, more ambiguous, less permanent. Life is a moment & an eternity....at the same time.
Somehow it is so difficult to not look back over my life & tally tasks left unfinished, words left unsaid & connections broken. I suppose, to a certain extent, that we do learn from the past. Is it possible to ever really let go of the past when it is woven into who we are...each day adding stitches & layers? Is it possible to let go of the future & planning? It brings to mind words from an old Toad the Wet Sprocket song:

"Funny how the days go by invisibly
And faster than I realize the things I think about
Strange to find the calendar my enemy
And scared that when I die so will the things
I think about"

The fear that our story will end, that it won't make any sense in the end or that it won't be a memorable enough story for anyone to jot down or repeat. Letting go of the the idea of life as literature does provide more room for taking experience as it comes...without expecting it, planning for it or even making sense of it. Who knows?