Seth's Blog : Seeking metaphor

Seeking metaphor

This is how we learn.

An apple is a lot like an orange, but you can eat the skin and it’s not as sweet. If you know what an orange is, you’re most of the way to understanding an apple.

But the indoctrination of school pushes us to be literal. When people talk about apples and oranges, good students imagine that they’re talking about apples and oranges.

Even when something is labeled as a metaphor, it’s a common instinct to simply focus on the details, not the ideas. If you can make a point with three very different examples, you’ll begin to see how powerful metaphor can be.

The hard work is to shift our default. To imagine that every incident, story or example is actually a metaphor, and only eventually coming to the conclusion that the specific details are what’s on offer.

Logic is symbolic. Learning requires handholds to help us understand the symbols, but it’s the logic that remains.