Metaphor

We all view ‘life’, our millions of present-moment experiences over the course of seventy-five or so years, through metaphor. Some see ‘life’ as a ‘bowl of cherries.’ Some see it as ‘the pits.’ We talk of ‘floating on air,’ or ‘reaching a dead end.’ ‘Stuck at a crossroads.’ ‘At the end of my rope.’ Or ‘on top of the world.’ You get the picture. A metaphor can define a mood, or it can define an entire lifetime.

The long-range metaphor I’ve found myself using for so long now is that life is something that has to be figured out. A riddle to be solved. In fact, I view it as a riddle given to each individual by God along with the responsibility to discover the solution. So, a day without seeking, searching, reading, asking, learning, or doing something to solve this riddle is a day ill spent. Wasted. Never to be had again. There’s a Big Answer somewhere, and if I keep looking for it hard enough, long enough, smart enough, eventually I’ll find it.

I am so sick of that metaphor.

Really. I have a pile of sixty books I need to get through, because the Big Answer might be somewhere in those 15,000 pages. I waste huge chunks of my discretionary time surfing the internet, link by link by link, hunting for a clue to the Big Answer. It’s to the point where it’s difficult to maintain focus. It’s impossible to stop hopping from one thing to another. It’s so hard to have that inner quiet and just enjoy the simpler things that are currently passing me by.

Metaphors are super-powerful. Jose Ortega y Gasset called them “a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him.” So it behooves anyone stuck in a rut to examine the big and little metaphors he habitually uses. Remember, metaphors are essentially symbols, and symbols powerfully influence our feelings. My ‘life-is-a-riddle-to-be-solved’ metaphor, while initially appealing to my positive virtues of curiosity and perseverance, has now become a symbol for something terribly dreary and ultimately unattainable. It’s what addiction feels like.

Is life a war? A test? A competition? A grind? Or is it a game? A garden? Something sacred? Instead of thinking of life as a riddle, how about thinking that the riddle has been solved? That’s it. The riddle has been solved. It’s been solved. Case closed. No more neverendingmustbesearchingness. No more.

Phew.

But if the riddle’s been solved, what’s next? Well, fill the void with a positive metaphor, of course. I already have one that I’ve been pondering off and on for a long while now, but it’s a bit too personal to write about just yet. The new metaphor probably will require its own future post. Perhaps in a month or so I’ll write a follow-up tracking my progress, however great or small it may be. Stay tuned, and examine your life metaphors!