Thinking in Metaphor...

[m1thr0s]

This isn't poem. This is a thought. I have a friend who thinks in metaphor to such an extreme extent that others fairly lose their marbles in his presence. They just can't handle it. In truth, the logical lines are all there but the meanders are vast and unpredictable. The ebbs and flows of thought itself will not be contained in proper little lines...the buttons will not match up in perfect horizontal longtitudes and latitudes...and people go flat balistic.

I am an artist really and a mystic at core so it saddens me to see this, all the while knowing that he takes the heat I am better geared to duck since I can zip my damn pants straight if I have to...never made them a better pair of pants though and all these little conformings only amount to a wall of invisible trousers.

When the matter turns to "magickal discussion" the thing is truly off the map. The incessant urgency of explaining what cannot be explained or defending what cannot be proved empirically. And still I try for reasons hard to qualify in language...that the words are not actually so important as the images they might incidentally transmit...always between the lines...between the worlds...nobody ever convinced anybody of anything...not ever...not really...not that I can remember.

Well...there is no right or wrong in any of this. Just a puzzle I sometimes seem to lean to... What if we flat-out banned linear speaking altogether? Would we really cease to understand each other? That appears to be the boogey-man all these lemmings are peeing their pants about. Is it real? Is it true? What's a lemming? lol...

One way or another you gotta leave some room. That's all I really know or care I guess. Our ability to think in metaphor is our ability to tip the balance and all the rest is just a secretarial assignment...not unimportant...but necessarily deaf dumb and blind to anything which cannot be stapled.

m1thr0s

[Kain]

Very good observation really, and certainly something I have been often thinking about myself. I often tend to think extensivley in metaphor myself really during a conversation, and I have noticed the frustration this leads most people to. It saddens me as well, so I know how you're feeling...I am an images person myself concerning communication, and I so often feel words are purely insufficient to convey a meaning with even remotely good accuracy. It is true that thinking in metaphor is the factor that really tips the balance and allows us to expand the borders of our conscious system of perception...

I agree with the view that during "magickal discussion" the issue should certainly be dropped and metaphor fully accepted and embraced, and I have actually been thinking about what would happen if linear speaking was flat-out banned...a very intriguing possibility really! I think we would definitely be able to understand each other, and also manage to collectively hone our perceptional abilities to a respectable degree, as most people are, in a way, largely perceptionally and communicationally impared...Indeed it is the ceasation of this communication medium that most people seem to fear most, though.

One way or another you gotta leave some room. That's all I really know or care I guess. Our ability to think in metaphor is our ability to tip the balance and all the rest is just a secretarial assignment...not unimportant...but necessarily deaf dumb and blind to anything which cannot be stapled.I think this is where my conclusions lead me too...very well put m1thr0s...

Kain

[m1thr0s]

I approach logic itself as an art form...not a religion and not the only way to make things clear to other people. If you know it is an art form, it's a lot easier to pull away from the canvass every now and then and let a little inspiration in.

m1thr0s

[chaos_mage4]

Hey there, I have a question, did Crowley perhaps think/write in metaphors?
I'm not altogether sure on what a metaphor is, I'm pretty sure, but my elementrary skills are rusty lol. (Heck I don't even remember kindergarten-7th grade lol.) But I was wondering did Crowley do that?
Thanks in advance,
~Christopher

[m1thr0s]

Crowley was a HUGE fan of metaphor and wrote virtually all of his books in one fell swoop in a sort of spirit-writing modality...that's one of the reasons you get such a bizarre admixture of the good, bad and ugly...he just let most of it stand as-is...

Very few writers will do that...it's just too rewarding to pull out all the crap as a rule...

metaphor
n.
(1) a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable.
(2) a thing regarded as symbolic of something else.

[Ðanisty]

One of my favorite songs uses some metaphors. I suppose they could serve as an example:

You Can't Call It Love - Roger Daltrey
It’s the same rain the same pain
The same picture in the same frame
Cold close smoldering hearts
And it can’t burst into flames then
Again it can’t go out

My passion is a nightingale with a
Sword throat
A dolphin in the Thames it’s a wasted love
It’s a telephone ringing in A empty house
It’s motherless child

You can say it’s a good thing
You can say it’s a bad thing
You can call it anything you want

But you can’t call it love
No. you can’t call it love
I’m lost among the stars
Another wishful one is waiting in the wings
To pick up where the last one put you down
To dry your eyes and fashion your new crown

Of fox gloves and steel strings
You can say it’s a good thing
You can say it’s a bad thing
You can call it anything you want

But you can’t call it love
No. you can’t call it love
No. you can’t call it love

The same town’s still standing
But the changes come creepin’ through
My dreams
But it’s a little late for praying
When your world is already on its knees
And on and on and on and on

My nightmare’s a devil’s dog on a rolling log
Got no control, no sense of time, its
Just a rhyme
And a banshee hollers in the dead of night
It’s a homeless ghost

You can say it’s a good thing
You can say it’s a bad thing
You can call it anything you want

But you can’t call it love
No. you can’t call it love
No. you can’t call it love
Can’t call it love

[Zaii]

This may sound like oversimplifying the situation a bit, but I'm of the opinion that people typically see what they want to see, and thus I don't spend too much time trying to convince them otherwise.

If I can take a minute and throw out a new idea, confront a blatant falsehood, or maybe just stir up their thoughts a bit, I will, but I rarely if ever engage in heated discussion or debate anymore, because honestly I'm not sure if anyone can really change anyone elses mind, they have to make the decision to do it themselves.

Thinking in metaphor? I do it all the time, but in day to day conversation, you have to kind of give it a rest. As you said, you definitely need to make some room, but, I also don't think constant poetic speech is relevant or valid.

[m1thr0s]

I've had two really powerful draws in my life...philosophy and music, and even art is an extension of philosophy for me really since on a technical level I'm actually a lousy line artist but very keen on composition, so things like sacred geometry etc have a very strong appeal to me.

But if it weren't for the music side of my brain I think I would have become suicidal long before now...the analytical mind is a powerful thing, but a person is not just one half of his/her brain and there are times when in order to advance the analytical mind itself, you really need to be able to venture where it dare not go of itself.

There is a difference of "will" going on in all of this somehow. So it's very true that too much of anything will spoil the broth, taken as a whole. I think my whole point in bringing it up is just that I was reflecting (for some reason) on how many analytical people I have known that seem to be intolerant of anyone who does not play by the exact same rules as they do. And this intolerance is indicative of a kind of mental paraplegia that tends to lack both humor and poetry...either of which have curious ties to the non-rational side of thought itself...or at least non-linear...

m1thr0s