We live in a metaphoric world, seeking metaphoric validation for every aspect of our life – from things that we see and experience to even mundane thoughts. They may come across as memories from our own experiences or those heard from others or read in books.
Remember Shakespeare’s ‘the world is a stage?’
Metaphors also become adjuncts to names – ‘gold’ or ‘golden’ is common in my part of the world back home. Conversely, every wrongdoer is a ‘dog’, bad-mouther a ‘gutter’, sly one ‘fox’… The list, as they say, is endless. Every creature has found a spot in the metaphoric illustration of people, their acts and behaviours – from ‘worms’ to ‘butterflies’ to ‘chickens’ to ‘lions’.
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Haven’t most of us been referred to as fishmongers while at school? ‘Is this a fish market?’ was (perhaps is) a common refrain from teachers trying to maneuver through the screams and loud chats of students before the beginning of the class.
And, don’t we all (or at least most of us) become ‘couch potatoes’ on weekends? Some of us become ‘Kumbhakarna’, the mythological character who used to sleep half the year.
There is an added emphasis when a metaphor is inserted. The exaggeration, perhaps, gives it a touch of humour, even acceptability from the one who is tagged.
We are all inclined to rely on metaphors to define, describe or simply to add an accepted dimension to things. For, it feels alright to say ‘baby steps’ when starting a venture/project, even when we know that a baby’s steps are usually unbalanced and quirky, and not literally small steps that we intend to convey.
Personally, my metaphors are obsessively linked to clouds – cushiony, cotton candies, even conversation blurbs in comic books. Sometimes they are sheep herds grazing sky fields, and at others stains of soot from chimneys of yesteryear.
Metaphors are handy tools to bridge communication gaps. They subtly tell us the value of things – like the popular ‘time is money’ or the ‘health is wealth’ metaphor; they dissect relations – like the ebb and flow of tides; they contemplate age – like twilight years, over the hill…
When the mood is mellow and philosophy pats you on the shoulder to go on a long walk with it, every aspect of life does appear to spread itself like a storyboard with metaphors explaining what they mean.