Metaphors of thought
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- Written by Andy W
- Category: Blog ideas
Isn’t it interesting how we so adamantly want to remove frustration from our life and yet we also adamantly persist that it’s because of stuff that’s happening? Manage our time better, make sure we come across how we want to, protect ourselves from “bad” energy and “release” ourselves from “toxic” people and so on and so forth.
Hmm... where are these prison walls we think we’re surrounded by, where are these chains to ideas and people, where is this “bad” energy and where does it go?
Why do we live as if these metaphors are real? Are we really “chained” to our desks or people or energy?
Metaphor, from the Greek word metaphora (μεταφορά), means transference, to transfer. We transfer ideas into expressions to convey thoughts in an attempt to bring to light an understanding, and all of that is a metaphor in itself. The “transference” of thoughts into communication is itself a metaphor, you can’t really “transfer” a thought, we just express it that way because that’s what it feels like. And everything we say or do, irrespective of what we’re saying or doing, is an attempt to express what we are feeling.
Therefore all of life, all of communication, whether through discourse or music or art or dance or anything else, is a transference of thought, a metaphor of thought, a metaphor of metaphors. So what is there really to be frustrated about? Metaphors?
We get caught up in what we think the metaphors are “telling us,” yet we don’t realise that all they are just metaphors.
It’s not about what we think we are chained to, it’s that we can’t actually be “chained” to anything we are thinking because they’re just thoughts. How can we ever be chained to a thought? Those “chains” are just thoughts too.
It’s all just thought. Nothing to be chained to and nothing to be chained by.