This week’s theme is metaphor. You may think metaphor is just moldy old stuff (this in itself is a metaphor), useful only to poets, but you’d be wrong. Eidetic thought – that is, thinking in terms of images – is a powerful creative tool. As George Lakoff points out, a good conceptual metaphor can communicate a vision more effectively than a thousand explanations.
Science uses metaphors such as black holes and the double helix of DNA. An organization can create an identity through metaphor. Even politics uses metaphor as an effective instrument of persuasion: what is Joe the Plumber if not a metaphor? Economics uses metaphors, which in this period tend to be medical in nature: weak demand, suffering industries that need injections of capital, etc. The site Metaphorobservatory talks about all this and more. It’s worth a look, if only because dreams are metaphors, and metaphors are the key to realizing one’s dreams. Which metaphors have you encountered recently? Which have resonated with you? Which do you accept, and which to you reject?
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