The Secret Life of Metaphor
Do we become what we imagine?
I met a man once who described a protracted legal battle he was choosing to fight in this way - “it’s as if someone was raping my daughter.” Except it wasn’t. It was nothing like that. I wonder if his choice of toxic metaphor led to his lifetime of toxic behavior. I wonder if he saw himself as the king of some imaginary universe, protecting himself from enemies real and imagined. Regardless of the reason, he has spent a lifetime holding people beneath the water and then pretending he was the lifeguard coming to rescue them.
The metaphors we choose for living are so powerful that I believe there is great danger in truly believing them. But they’re all too common these days - people who believe their own bullshite. When people wrap themselves in the vivid imagery of a fighter, a combat soldier, or even a victim, the drama never ceases.
But I would argue that we cannot function without metaphor. The staid, transactional language of the DMV will not carry us through the day. So we color our ideas by kicking a habit, while traveling on life’s highway, and looking out at a white blanket of snow before kicking the bucket.
Our identities are wrapped up in metaphors. Most of us choose metaphors without a callous disregard for victims of sexual assault, but I believe the language we use to describe the challenges and triumphs in our lives helps dictate our responses to them. So choosing our metaphors can be as important as choosing our partners or whether or not we are a dog or cat person. The metaphors we adopt for living become our identities. No dam breaks from a single drop of water, a dam breaks from all of the water. I suspect it’s the same with people as well. Toxic metaphors are just a single piece in what I imagine to be an entire portfolio of toxic habits.
My close friends that are still reading this right now are likely searching for the definition of “metaphor”. Let’s see if I can help. Quickly, think back to when you ditched high school English to smoke cigarettes. This is what you missed - an analogy, compares the similarity of one thing to another, and a metaphor, a type of analogy, compares two things that are dissimilar. So far, so good. A good metaphor cuts through and clarifies the essence of a problem. But remember, metaphors aren’t meant to be believed, they are meant to illustrate, illuminate and inspire.
When Churchill addressed Britain before the fall of France in 1940, he sought to inspire Brits to defend their island from a German attack. But no one can fight forever, he implored citizens to “ride out the storm of war”, because as we all know, calm once again returns after a storm. It was once of the greatest speeches delivered in human history, and you should read it but you likely will not.
By making connections between complex and simple ideas, metaphors can change the way we act and how we feel, they may do this through some physiological connection or by simply coloring our understanding of the world and our reactions to it. Metaphors have long been useful tools for understanding ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses, and our way forward.
Paul Thibodeau and Lera Boroditsky from Stanford University asked students to read crime reports - one describing crime as a wild beast lurking and preying on the city and the other as a virus. 75% of the first group advocated extreme crime prevention measures, including the National Gauyrdd, compared with 56% seeking more enforcement in the second group.
Beyond metaphor lies the realm of experience and observation. Life. Living our lives, listening to others, and hopefully improving ourselves.
Haruki Murakami is one of the world’s greatest living writers. He thinks and writes deeply about the human condition and he constructs oddly beautiful metaphors in his work. (His writing is deeply complex - start by reading Norwegian Wood if you want to try him, but you won’t) He writes this about metaphor (and irony - but that’s for another day) in his challenging novel Kafka on the Shore:
“Everything in life is metaphor... We accept irony through a device called metaphor. And through that, we grow and become deeper human beings. Irony deepens a person, and helps them mature. It’s the entrance to salvation....”
Maybe.