Your life as a metaphor

..: Everybody wins with metaphors:..

Sit in any primary school English lesson on metaphors and you will remember the pivotal distinction between a metaphor and simile is defined to us as 'a comparison between nouns that does not use 'like' or 'as'.

But, a metaphor is so much more than that!!!  

I am by no means a Christian, but I recognise in what little I know of Christianity; that Jesus loved metaphors (and I think he was onto something): “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Luke 18:25)”. So, why be so convoluted Jesus? You're the 'Son' (metaphor?) of the creator of all things, right? If you've got something important to say- by all means SAY IT!!

But that's just it... He can't say it.. You can't just say something an expect it will be taken the same way by all people (evidence in the fact that religious debate has been so incredibly pertinent for the last two thousand odd years). So you use a metaphor. The magical food source for the creative brain, the intuitive, expansive network of synapses that interprets abstract notions. 

The brilliance in a metaphor, is that it can evoke the feeling, evoke an idea that is grasped but not expressed in words. It is a story (and don't we all love stories?), it holds our attention whilst sneakily by-passing our critical cognitive defence systems.

A metaphor is custom designed by and for each individual. You will interpret it as you will (as with anything in ones perception), but your interpretation is always the right one...because most often the message you take from metaphor is just the message you needed to take.

which brings me to my next point...

Your life as a metaphor:

I have taken to the subjective world- and by doing so decided to take everything that occurs in my life as a metaphor. I take everything that happens in my daily life and reflect it back to myself and derive some meaning from that. This allows me to notice anything unusual, any patterns, anything remotely interesting that I may decided to change or acknowledge. and perhaps it just gives me something to do... (haha).

For example:

A humorous metaphor of my recent life was when I stepped in dog poo.

 I didn't realise it was me who had stepped in it. But I could smell it on the train. I looked around at people surround me- sending out thoughts of olfactory disgust at the anonymous perpetrator, all the while being the unsuspecting culprit.

When I realised, I realised many things:

1. I really put my foot in it, this time

2. It was hanging around like a bad smell

3. I who smelt it, dealt it... (so to speak)

I had been so preoccupied with my thoughts, so detached from the physical world around me that I had lost my grip- It took me way too long to notice that I had dog poo on my shoe, because I was too busy in my own mind.

This may seem like a insignificant event to you- but it being my subjective metaphor, meant a lot! I took this as a message: 'You are not grounded in your reality, take a look at yourself'.

Carl Jung spoke in great detail about the nature of the collective consciousness and metaphor. The primary modality of the archetypes of life are just that- archetypes. They have no true form, only the form we assign to them. I think this is true of most things in life.

So I urge you, Reader, to think about what seemingly insignificant things can be taken as metaphors in your life. What message does it send to you?...