What is a Metaphor? A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea. Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison or resemblance. With metaphor, unlike analogy, specific interpretations are not given explicitly. We can wonder as to what could be a meaningful metaphor which can suitably represent our chaotic and hectic modern life? Let us for a moment consider ourselves as the very “Constructor” of our own lives who is responsible for all his actions and theirs consequences. Who is a Constructor? The simplest definition is that an Entity who has the ability to Construct Ideas, Concepts and Objects. For example, a writer constructs an artifact i.e. a book whose fundamental building blocks are words and he provides a meaning to them by arranging these words suitably in a particular framework. If we consider ourselves as Constructor of our own lives then the natural question which arises is that what are the basic building blocks that are available at our disposal. It is our elementary experiences that we sense in our journey of life. We can consider these elementary experiences and provide relationships between them so that a much more comprehensive and satisfactory memory would be built in our mind. This memory in our mind is our very own which we can freely associate without the constraints imposed by the reality which is outer and external to our existence and may be beyond our control. This memory and the associated meaning is the inner metaphorical reality for us which may be well within our control. These so called building blocks of our existence i.e. the elementary experiences we have undergone can only be considered as authentic and the extensive meanings derived by the arrangements of them provided by our construction process are meant only for that single purpose i.e. to provide a satisfactory meaning to our life. Though we are very much seduced and tempted by the attractive meaning evolved it is only our building blocks which will always be true to themselves over a period of time as they have been obtained by our sensory experience and synthesized by our perceptual observation. These are the words which we have used and which are present with their relative definitions in the dictionary of life. We can always depend on them, rely on them and fall back on them time and again in order to again and again construct useful meaning and then allowed ourselves to be deeply seduced and tempted by these derived meanings. But we should always remember that the external literal reality would subsume our internal metaphorical reality which is simply an artificial construct of our own mind. This identification is the crux of our existence which not only allows us to rebel against the absurdity but simultaneously also embraces it as it is inevitable and unstoppable in a universe which is truly neutral to our presence in it.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Aug 2013 05:01:46 +0000