Meta-metaphor
August 4th, 2008 1:03:32 pm pst by 
Sterling Camden
Robert Hruzek is back to his old tricks again, with a new “What I Learned From…” writing project. This time, you’re supposed to think of a metaphor for life, and explain how you learned something from that metaphor. So here’s mine:
Life is a metaphor
Besides the geeky satisfaction I get from answering the question self-referentially, there actually is something to be learned from this metaphor metaphor.
What is a metaphor? It’s an assertion that something is something it isn’t in order to draw notice to qualities that the two have in common, to some degree. Life is the concept that a group of separate events form the single timeline of experiences for an individual entity: me (my life), you (your life), or someone else (their life). It’s really much more complex than that, but we call it an individual thing because that’s easier for us to grok.
Of course, life isn’t actually a metaphor — I was using “metaphor” metaphorically, after all.
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Chip, you’ve managed to put me in the position of having absolutely no comeback for this one! Congratulations, it doesn’t happen often.
Thanks for contributing this month. I always enjoy a peek into your thought processes!
My pleasure, Robert! I couldn’t resist this one.
Whoa. I’m all dizzy now from reading these posts. I do like your entry, Chip! But I can barely think straight as it is so I’ll keep out of that particular project. LOL. I did however want to ask you if you had ever hear of Goodreads? It is a little program that allows you to share the books you read and your reviews of them with friends. I’ve been meaning to come over and ask you for a while now because it was you who was reading Wuthering Heights and that made me want to read it so I actually did go back and read it. I enjoyed it. So I thought you might be interested in something like this. Anyway, no pressure but there is a link here if you think you’d like to check it. I have found some other blog buddies using it as well. If you join, add me as a friend so I can check out your reads!
http://www.goodreads.com/
I’ll join, teeni, and look you up. Later on I’ll figure out how to generate a CSV file for uploading my reading list.
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