Why should stories follow a 3 or 5 Act structure when life doesn’t?
I posed the question on Twitter to see what responses might be generated. I received a couple. One went off on a philosophical tangent. And my answer is already given.
I suspect there is a field of narrative sociology (now there’s topic for a PhD) where this might apply and I remembered one of my twitter connections who is doing something like this.
I write stories where I follow the practiced methodology of the 3- or 5- Act structure, following the characters’ development and complications. It is the fundamental aspect of story telling you can find on most writing blogs. Other experimental forms still adhere to this idea in some tangential form or another.
You can start the Ira Glass research here.
Life is chaotic, messy, rhythmic, cyclical, disorganised, organised, coincidental, planned.
The takeaway is this: we codify experience to make it easier to understand.
Your response?
A Fullness in Brevity - Adam Byatt 
I think our attention span is different for real life than for reading.
Sometimes my attention span for real life oscillates dramatically between red-cordial-influenced-kid-with-ADHD and a Zen master. Same goes for reading.
that got a good chuckle from me, agreed!