"To Be Rather Than to seem"

   The North Carolina "In God We Trust" license plate, To be rather than to seem.

  Parings.

  I know in grad school, I spent a semester fumbling around in the dark forests of metaphor and trope.  I did not like it.

  It seems like philosophers have all the answers sometimes.  But I struggled to match wit to the realism(s) of our own age.