Metaphors

Recently I had an interaction with a couple that left me questioning my skills with language. Over dinner and a discussion of exciting ideas, I enthused and barely contained my excitement. Everything I said was presented in glistening metaphors (of which I was unaware at the time.) In the time between the start of dinner and the end, I became increasingly aware that the man didn't understand what I was saying, and perhaps just didn't like me very well.

I did two things in response to my perception: I tried to communicate better, i.e. make better metaphors. Then I read him intuitively, sensing that on some level I reminded him of his mother, and sensing that this was not a positive thing. Eventually, I gave up, lost my enthusiasm, and tried to be quiet.

The most interesting part of all of this comes in the lunch I had with the wife a day or two later. She took the time and trouble to explain to me what went on. Because we potentially may be friends for a long time, this revelation was a real gift.

She said that metaphors are a signal for danger to him. (I know about psychological triggers, so she was speaking my language right from the start.) As a teen, he had been given some devasting news by his mother ...in the form of a metaphor. So when he hears or senses an apt comparison, he shuts down.

From this I was able to determine:

• anything can be a trigger
• we each have a responsibility to remove the fuse from our personal triggers
• I am in the habit of using metaphors to excess
• I was right-on about the mom association, just in a different form
• metaphors can be used for many functions (more in a moment on that one)
• this friendship would be my opportunity to consciously use or not use metaphor, to be more aware of my own communication style (a good thing)

In conversing with myself about this strange verbal wreckage, I found that I was unable to think about it all without giving myself a metaphor. I would think, "Maybe for him it is like... No, wait. Well, it's as if I were... No, no, wait. It could seem that..." And so on. Until I realized the context in which metaphor is necessary: for the unnameable and formless in our lives, we must resort to metaphor. We can give these "things" names (insight, enlightenment, awareness, relationship) but abstract nouns fly about as far as lead birds. Metaphors take wing and carry meaning all over the place, dropping seeds of potential and fertilizing ideas. See? Case in point.

I also tried practicing communication without metaphor, and found it to be revealing. As in naked. Talking free of metaphor is an embarrassing way (for me) to speak. Language without metaphor is direct, unsoftened, mono-tentional. There's no escape to, "Yes, I mean that, but also this." Using metaphor is a way to avoid blasting others with difficult truths or difficult concepts. Hence this man's mother used metaphor to break life-changing news to him in a way he might understand. I had to admit that I have often used metaphor to hide. It was as if I was saying, "Figure out what all I might mean, if you can."

It makes sense that I would communicate in such a way, being as I lived forty years with secrets of abuse and didn't reveal them to anyone. But maybe while this guy works on allowing metaphor to his ears I can take it as an opportunity to regulate the flow of metaphor out of my mouth. Maybe it's time for me to be direct and reveal my self to others. I may not become a verbal flasher (yet), but at least I can take off my down coat of ideas in a warm room.

See? It just comes to me.