Contents
Why the way you see the world defines how you go around the world
Psychology
Discover how metaphors are part of your life and how, in addition, they shape it
At school they teach you that when defining a word you cannot repeat that word in the definition. However, perhaps there is nothing better than a metaphor to explain its meaning: metaphors are the skin (or disguise) of beliefs and our beliefs can become bars or doors. The way we see the world shapes the way we go through the world and clearly metaphors are a way of seeing.
Eg the time is gold or money is a very common metaphor and a perfect example of how metaphors influence us. Thanks to them we refer to time as we do to money: and we save it, we spend it, we lose it and we earn it. Despite the fact that unfortunately today there are no time banks, nor can loans be requested. Perhaps, if instead of saying that time is money we said that time is food, instead of spending it we would talk about cultivating it, instead of investing, nurturing and so on to infinity.
There are universal metaphors, such as time is money, but there are also personal like that of my friend Fran’s 95-year-old landlord who lives in San Francisco, who once told him that for him the thoughts were like prayers with which you asked the universe for something. And of course, nobody would ask for something they don’t want, right? However, many times we think about everything bad that could happen, no matter how unlikely.
They are also the cultural metaphors. For example, the quintessential Western way of representing the family is a genealogical tree that we usually represent by way of inverted pyramid. Above us are our parents, above our parents are theirs … and so on. In contrast to this way of interpreting the family is that of an Indian tribe in America. They, instead of looking like the final part of an inverted pyramid, that you have to support and carry its weight on your back, they look like en the top of a mountain. And they are convinced that their parents, to raise them, have had to learn many things to be able to teach them to them and that they have loved them very much. And that the parents of their parents have done the same with theirs. And that all that wisdom and love has been accumulating and is what sustains them.
And honestly, between seeing myself as the last branch of a tree or as the top of a mountain of wisdom and love, it is clear to me. Well that, it says a lot that the life is gameWhat is not said so much is that, perhaps, between metaphors is where the game is.