I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Tuesday Book Club, I share an idea from a book.
[Metaphor] is not just a matter of language, that is, of mere words. We shall argue that, on the contrary, human thought processes are largely metaphorical. This is what we mean when we say that the human conceptual system is metaphorically structured and defined. Metaphors as linguistic expressions are possible precisely because there are metaphors in a person’s conceptual system.
George Lakoff and Mark Johnsen, Metaphors We Live By
Lakoff and Johnsen use the metaphorical concept argument is war as an example of how our thought and our speech is organized by metaphor:
[We] don’t just talk about arguments in terms of war. We can actually win or lose arguments. We see the person we are arguing with as an opponent. We attack his positions and defend our own…. Many of the things we do in arguing are partially structured by the concept of war. Though there is no physical battle, there is a verbal battle, and the structure of an argument—attack, defense, counterattack, etc.—reflects this. It is in this sense that the argument is war metaphor is one that we live by in this culture; it structures the actions we perform in arguing.
Because so much of our thought and speech is organized metaphorically, we can change our way of meeting the world by changing the metaphors we rely upon.
In my experience, changing metaphors is a more sure way to feeling better and making better decisions than trying to change sets of thoughts themselves, as you might with the popular counseling technique cognitive behavioral therapy.
The brunch
I went to brunch with my father, his partner, and her son yesterday. Afterward I felt that maybe I had been abrasive and awkward, introducing conversational subjects that went nowhere and seemed in retrospect to be inappropriate.
My initial judgments of myself were metaphorical in nature. Awkward derives from a word meaning “turned the wrong way” from the 1500s. Abrasive, of course, means something capable of roughly scraping on something else, like a piece of sandpaper.
What metaphors might I use instead to reframe the situation? ChatGPT suggested a couple I liked:
- The brunch table was an underpowered circuit and I was supplying more voltage than the room could comfortably absorb
- I was trying to kindle a conversation that didn’t readily catch fire
- I brought more energy than the gathering could easily metabolize
None of these metaphors absolve me of responsibility — each suggests I was doing something that didn’t really work (there’s another metaphor) because I wasn’t reading the room (another metaphor). But it gets away from describing me as an unpleasant person and focuses more on a situation that was difficult, for me, if not for anyone else.
CBT would have me go from “I was awkward and abrasive” to “I was just trying to make conversation in a setting where it was difficult.” Metaphors make a bridge to the new conceptual way of understanding the situation.
ACT and metaphors
Steven Hayes’ Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) psychotherapeutic approach is based on the idea that we create problems for ourselves because of our mental flexibility that allows us to link any two things together based on context. He calls the foundation of his approach Relational Frame Theory. This theory says that humans create bidirectional links between things. A metaphor is just such a link. If I think, “I was abrasive,” I’m creating a thought link between my self and the physical quality of being so rough you can scratch things up.
Among its various practices, the ACT approach promotes the use of flexible metaphors for loosening up the thought networks that keep us feeling bad and avoiding doing the things we really want to do. For example, some ACT therapists suggest you observe your thoughts like they are leaves floating on a stream, moving by. This helps you detach from those thoughts and see them as coming and going, not as some sort of rock-hard truth. Another metaphor is the idea that you are driving a bus, and there are all sorts of creatures on it, yelling things at you, like where you should turn or warning you of some upcoming hazard. The creatures are your thoughts, but you just ignore them and drive the route you’re supposed to drive.
Life metaphors
I’ve noticed that some of the philosophical ideas I like best are metaphorical in nature:
- Life as literature
- Experiencing a shipwreck and then having to construct a new boat from the debris
- The inner master and slave of the achievement society
- The machinery of life
The power of metaphors is in how they highlight certain aspects of a situation while downplaying others, which can be helpful or harmful.
Lakoff and Johnsen write:
The very systematicity that allows us to comprehend one aspect of a concept in terms of another (e.g., comprehending an aspect of arguing in terms of battle) will necessarily hide other aspects of the concept. In allowing us to focus on one aspect of a concept (e.g., the battling aspects of arguing), a metaphorical concept can keep us from focusing on other aspects of the concept that are inconsistent with that metaphor. For example, in the midst of a heated argument, when we are intent on attacking our opponent’s position and defending our own, we may lose sight of the cooperative aspects of arguing Someone who is arguing with you can be viewed as giving you his time, a valuable commodity, in an effort at mutual understanding. But when we are preoccupied with the battle aspects, we often lose sight of the cooperative aspects.
In many situation in life, especially those that bring anxiety or sadness or other upset, it’s useful to ask yourself: What metaphor am I operating under? And Is there another metaphor I might take on that would be more helpful for me?
There is much more to say about metaphors, but I will stop here for now. I’m already finding power in it, by reframing yesterday’s brunch experience not by retelling exactly what was happening, but by experimenting with different symbolic (i.e., metaphorical) representations of the experience.