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A metaphor is a bridge.

Mole

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A metaphor is a bridge between the known and the unknown.

On this side all is familiar but the other side is shrouded in mist.

I regularly invite you to cross the bridge of metaphor with me but most of you baulk. And who can blame you, for all animals fear the unknown, and we are no different.

So to cross the bridge of metaphor we need to learn to create our own metaphors and learn to cross into the unknown, certainly with some fear, but with practice, with more confidence.

And indeed metaphors call to metaphors. And as one metaphor dies, another comes into being.

Some metaphors last forever and become portals to another world.

And the most exciting thing is that we are surrounded by portals.
 

Fluffywolf

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Metaphors are often the only way for me to express myself. They help me understand and create context for what goes on in my own head.
 
R

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Victor,

I’ve been reading your “Gratitude” thread, and I still have absolutely no clue why you’re in the hospital, what ailment you have, what cure you’re attempting, and what you want to accomplish by it. I can’t tell if you’re seriously ill and trying to do something to restore your health or if you’re basically fine and taking some course of therapy to hone some physical or mental facet. Sounds like you're doing some biofeedback thing, but that's all I've gleaned so far.

But then, that’s about par for the course with your posts. You hide behind metaphor.

As for the use of metaphors: They have to be used with caution. They should accompany good communiction, not replace it. When they are overused, they are the death of good communication or literature. Metaphors are like caviar as an appetizer: in small doses, they provide accent and focus; in large doses they cause everyone to feel sick and not want to eat any more.

The following is an excerpt from a book called Silk and Steel by Ron Miller. It’s a romance novel, a Harlequin-style potboiler. If you like metaphors, read it. All of it. (You can ignore the similes in the second paragraph if you want.)

As Spikenard watched, Bronwyn slipped the transparent cloak from her shoulders; it fell with a whisper. She let her hands drop to her sides; she pulled her shoulders back and stood erect, feet apart, legs straight. This is what he saw:

Bronwyn standing pale and tall in the nervous light that shimmered through a vibrating canopy of green leaves. The shifting bands of milky light and emerald shadow made her seem luminous, translucent, as though she were a tallow candle glowing beneath its own flame. Like a porcelain lantern. Like a curtain fluttering in a window at dawn. Like a ghost that came and went with the twilight and darkness, that first veiled and then revealed.

Her hair had the sheen of the sea beneath an eclipsed moon. It was the color of a leopard's tongue, of oiled mahogany. It was terra cotta, bay and chestnut. Her hair was a helmet, a hood, the cowl of the monk, magician or cobra.

Her face had the fragrance of a gibbous moon. The scent of fresh snow. Her eyes were dark birds in fresh snow. They were the birds' shadows, they were mirrors; they were the legends on old charts. They were antique armor and the tears of dragons. Her brows were a raptor's sharp, anxious wings. They were a pair of scythes. Her ears were a puzzle carved in ivory. Her teeth were her only bracelet; she carried them within the red velvet purse of her lips. Her tongue was amber. Her tongue was a ferret, an anemone, a fox caught in the teeth of a tiger.

Her shoulders were the clay in a potter's kiln. Her shoulders were fieldstones; they were the white, square stones of which walls are made. They were windows covered with steam. They were porcelain. They were opal and moonstone. Her neck was the foam that curls from the prow of a ship, it was a sheaf of alfalfa or barley, it was the lonely dance of the pearl-grey shark.

Her legs were quills. They were bundles of wicker, they were candelabra; the muscles were summer lightning, that flickered like a passing thought; they were captured eels or a cable on a windlass. Her thighs were geese, pythons, schooners. They were cypress or banyan; her thighs were a forge, they were shears; her thighs were sandstone, they were the sandstone buttresses of a cathedral, they were silk or cobwebs. Her calves were sweet with the sap of elders, her feet were bleached bones, her feet were driftwood. Her feet were springs, marmosets or locusts; her toes were snails, they were snails with shells of tears.

Her arms were a corral, a fence, an enclosure; they were pennants; they were highways. Her fingers were incense. They were silver fish in clear water; they were the speed of the fish, they were the fish's wake. They were semaphores; they were meteors.

Her spine was a snake. It was the track of a snake. It was the groove the water snake makes in the glossy mud of the riverbank. Her spine was a viper, an anaconda. It was the strength of the anaconda. It was the anaconda's unknown hieroglyphic. Her spine was a ladder, a rod; it was a chain, a canal, it was a caravan. Her buttocks were fresh-baked loaves; they were ivory eggs, they were the eggs of the lonely phoenix. They were a fist.

Her breasts were citrus, they were soapstone; they were bright cumulus and the smooth fingertips of Musrum. Her breasts were honeycombs and dew-beaded windows, or soft, sweet cheese. They were sweet apples; they were glass, they were cowries. They were the twin moons of the earth. The nipples rose like mecury with her heat. They rose like monuments atop flowered hills, above deserts of hot sand; the nipples were savory morsels, with the flavor of the forest.

Her ribs were a niche, an alcove, an apse; her stomach was an idol in the niche, alcove or apse, an effigy, a phantom. Her stomach was a beach, a savannah, a flagstone warmed by the sun, a cat asleep on the flagstone, a bleached canvas sail in hot southern winds. Her navel winked like a doll's eye, like the eye of a whale, like the drowsy cat.

Her pubes was a field of wheat after the harvest, a field neatly furrowed; it was a nest, a pomegranate, an arrowhead, a rune. It was a shadow. It was moss on a smooth white stone. There was an orchid within the moss. There was a drop of dew upon the orchid. It had the breath of moss-beds, of the deep seas, of the abyss, of scrimshaw and blue glass, of cold iron; she had the sex of rain forests, the ibis and the scarab; she had the sex of mirrors and candles, of the hot, careful winds that stroke the veldt, the winds that taste of clay and seed and blood; the winds that dreamed of tawny, lean animals.

"You are quite beautiful, Princess Bronwyn," Spikenard sang, with his sardonic grin and eyes as violet and hard as amethysts. "Your body is halfway between earth and dream, neither magic nor elemental, neither animal nor spirit."

Gotta love them metaphors. :sick:
 

Mole

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Metaphors break the rules.

Victor,
I’ve been reading your “Gratitude” thread, and I still have absolutely no clue why you’re in the hospital, what ailment you have, what cure you’re attempting, and what you want to accomplish by it. I can’t tell if you’re seriously ill and trying to do something to restore your health or if you’re basically fine and taking some course of therapy to hone some physical or mental facet. Sounds like you're doing some biofeedback thing, but that's all I've gleaned so far.

But then, that’s about par for the course with your posts. You hide behind metaphor.

As for the use of metaphors: They have to be used with caution. They should accompany good communiction, not replace it. When they are overused, they are the death of good communication or literature. Metaphors are like caviar as an appetizer: in small doses, they provide accent and focus; in large doses they cause everyone to feel sick and not want to eat any more.

Perhaps you would like me to write in literal language so you may understand me.

Or perhaps you recognise in your heart that metaphors, not only break the rules of language, but the rules of logic as well.

So many of you want to understand me and are made sea-sick by my metaphors. But I suspect my greatest sin is that I break the rules which you so assiduously follow.
 
R

RDF

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Perhaps you would like me to write in literal language so you may understand me.

Not necessarily literal. Literal can be overdone too. But comprehensible would be nice.

Or perhaps you recognise in your heart that metaphors, not only break the rules of language, but the rules of logic as well.

So many of you want to understand me and are made sea-sick by my metaphors. But I suspect my greatest sin is that I break the rules which you so assiduously follow.

No, you just misuse metaphors.

(BTW, I don’t mean to give you a hard time when you’re ill. I’ve refrained from criticizing your posts within the “Gratitude” thread itself for that reason. But this thread gets at the heart of why you’re such a difficult read.)
 

Fluffywolf

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I don't think Victor is such a difficult read, sure he often uses references from cultures lost on me, but I can make do using the very portals and metaphors he promotes in this thread. And I find it quite philosophically inspiring. Sure you can accept the literal, find your own reason for living and expell other opinions while you're at it. But the fact is that wether we have a reason or not, we do live and we live temporarily, and what we make of it is entirely up to ourselves. Victor apparantly enjoys looming in the metaphors and I don't know his real life situation, but on this forum that is hardly an unhealthy position to take.

I'm not all that down to earth myself, I like to play around with the unanswerable and see where my thoughts lead me. Not in such a passionate way Victor does, but in my own way, and I enjoy reading Victor's posts.

What I don't understand is why people make such a big deal out of his posts, thinking he is some kind of unhealthy, psychologically disturbed male. I mean, who are you kidding if not only yourself? Is Victor doing any harm to you? Do you have proof he does any harm to others? Do you have any right justifying you are harming not only Victor but yourselves as well by making such a stigma out of all of this?

He is not only different from you, you are different from him as well. Keep that in mind. :p
 
R

RDF

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What I don't understand is why people make such a big deal out of his posts, thinking he is some kind of unhealthy, psychologically disturbed male.

I just imagine that he's very young, and a bit too much in love with his own very fanciful style of writing. But I don't question his psychological health. When I can parse his posts, his opinions seem sane enough; even PC. I just think he suffers from an excess of whimsicality in his writing style.

He hides meaning behind metaphors. The thread is about the use of metaphor, and his use of it in particular. So I figured I would give him my opinion on the subject. Hopefully, no harm done.
 

onemoretime

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Victor's talking about archetypes and Jungian philosophy here, guys.

I agree. We do need to cast our fear of the unknown aside, and boldly accept the invitation to see the world as others see it. To do that, we must put away our prejudices of how the world is, and open ourselves to the possibility of what the world may be to someone else.
 

onemoretime

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So the issue of the use of metaphors is itself only a metaphor...

Yup. Hell, the letters on this screen are metaphors for a certain pattern of sound, which is a metaphor for a certain vibration of vocal cords, which is a metaphor for a certain movement of muscles, which is a metaphor for a certain pattern of electrical current, which is a metaphor for something we're not quite sure of.

In short, I will not tolerate these baseless allegories.
 

Totenkindly

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...I suspect my greatest sin is that I break the rules which you so assiduously follow.

Actually, I think his point was exactly what he said. Don't read too much into it. If someone is reading you as immature or young, comments like this (where you assume yourself some sort of iconoclast "shaking up the system") contribute to that. No, people just want to actually get to the meat underneath the presentation, and you've been told this directly by a number of people over your time here but have chosen a different path for yourself.

I doubt you'd get the criticis you have from some, if you simply varied your presentation up a bit and they could catch a glimpse of the "man behind the curtain." Enigmas with no glimpse whatsoever of what lies beneath eventually lose their power to entice. If someone is just looking for an enigma and doesn't care to directly touch the man underneath, then I suppose they are benefited by your presentation.

I'm only mentioning it because you seem bothered that you are ignored by some. That's only the natural outcome for when people are at cross-purposes in communication, with no apparent resolution in sight. You do have your particular following, so you can at least enjoy that much, but it limits interest from others.
 

Totenkindly

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The title of this thread was almost a simile.

Well, since the "like" is understood, I suppose it's more of a clandestine simile than an overt metaphor.
(What's a meta for, anyway?)
 

King sns

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A metaphor is a bridge between the known and the unknown.

On this side all is familiar but the other side is shrouded in mist.

I regularly invite you to cross the bridge of metaphor with me but most of you baulk. And who can blame you, for all animals fear the unknown, and we are no different.

So to cross the bridge of metaphor we need to learn to create our own metaphors and learn to cross into the unknown, certainly with some fear, but with practice, with more confidence.

And indeed metaphors call to metaphors. And as one metaphor dies, another comes into being.

Some metaphors last forever and become portals to another world.

And the most exciting thing is that we are surrounded by portals.

:yes: hmmm.. Nice food for thought. (Food for thought! Used a metaphor and didn't know it! :D)

You see, the food is like the words, and the thought is like the mouth or the stomach and... yay! I'm getting the hang of this!
 

Mole

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The War Between Literalism and Metaphor

Of course it's war. It's war between literalism and metaphor.

Literalism was born in 1440 with the invention of the Gutenberg printing press. And the first book printed was the Gutenberg Bible, leading to universal literacy and literalism.

And the country most influenced by the literal interpretation of the Bible was the USA. And today Yankees remain soaked in literalism, and the meretricious are still trying to force it down my throat.

Fortunately in 1840 the electric telegraph was born and metaphor came into its own.

And so the war between literalism and metaphor plays itself out here. Fortunately the media we use here is quite like the electric telegraph, but available to each of us across the world.

Today literalism is stale and dead and only maintained by force majeure, while metaphor is alive and well and speaks to the deep down freshness of things.
 
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