Card #37 – ”Make A Metaphor”

Card #37 – ”Make A Metaphor” from the Creative Whack Pack

Available on the iOS App Store and as a physical deck of cards

The key to metaphorical thinking is comparing unrelated things and finding similarities between them.

For example: what do a cat and a refrigerator have in common? They both have a place to put fish; they both have tails; they purr; they come in a variety of colors; and, they both last about fifteen years.

Finding similarity is how our thinking grows: we understand the unfamiliar by comparing it to what we know. The first automobiles were called horseless carriages. Early locomotives were dubbed iron horses.

We refer to resemblances between things all of the time. We say that hammers have heads, tables have legs, roads have shoulders, cities have hearts, and beds have feet.

Metaphors can give us a fresh insight into a problem or situation. For example, here are six metaphors for life:

• Life is like a jigsaw puzzle but you don’t have the picture on the front of the box to use as a guide. Sometimes you’re not even sure if you have all the pieces.

• Life is like a bagel. It’s delicious when it’s fresh and warm, but often it’s just hard. The hole in the middle is its great mystery, and yet it wouldn’t be a bagel without it.

• Life is like cooking. It all depends on what you add and how you mix it. Sometimes you follow the recipe and at other times, you’re creative.

• Life is like a puppy dog always looking for a street full of fire hydrants.

• Life is like a room full of open doors that close as you get older.

• Life is like a poker game. You deal or are dealt to. You bet, check, bluff, and raise. You learn from your fellow players. Sometimes you win with a pair or lose with a full house. But whatever happens, it’s best to keep shuffling along.

Many great teachers have used metaphors to express their ideas:

Socrates compared the human mind to a “ship in which the sailors had mutinied and locked up the Captain.”

Jesus likened the Kingdom of God to a “hidden treasure” and a “wedding feast.”

•Ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu employed the concepts of a “windowless room” and the “empty hub of a thirty-spoked wheel” to describe the ineffable nature of the Tao.

• For Buddha, the First Noble Truth is that life is dukkha (usually translated as “suffering”). During his lifetime, dukkha referred to “wheels whose axles were off-center” or “bones that had slipped from their sockets.” Buddha made metaphoric use of this term to stress that in suffering “life is out of joint” and “its pivot is not true.”

As philosopher Ortega y Gasset put it: “The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man.”

— What metaphors can you make for your issue?

— What is your metaphor for life?

— What similarities does your idea share with the following activities? Which ones can serve as metaphors for your situation?

• Building a house

• Raising a child

• Selling a product

• Cooking a meal

• Running a marathon

• Starting a revolution

• Courting a mate

• Putting out a fire

• Fighting a disease

• Having a baby

• Selling a product

• Suing an adversary

• Running a marathon

• Doing standup comedy

• Colonizing a territory

• Going fishing

• Arranging flowers

• Pruning a tree

• Conducting an orchestra

Scroll to Top