Metaphor

meta•phor
noun [C, U] a word or phrase used to describe sb/sth else, in a way that is different from its normal use, in order to show that the two things have the same qualities and to make the description more powerful.


"Metaphors are dangerous," Milan Kundera wrote in The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Metaphor gives you a more colourful exposition of certain qualities in things, it helps you understand things better by analogy.

But why metaphors are dangerous?

Tomas fell in love with Tereza because he had found her like a baby sent downstream to him in a bulrush basket.

Metaphor works by abstracting the similarity between two things. In a metaphor, the things compared cease to be themselves. We're left with the similarity.

Tomas followed what every human would do seeing a bulrush basket floating downstream with a baby in it: he picked the baby up and brought her up. The metaphor carries the necessity of the conscience of "saving the innocent and helpless". Yet, it might not be so between Tomas and Tereza. Tereza came up in Tomas' life just like a baby floating downstream in a bulrush basket, but there was no necessity for Tomas to fall in love with her, like every other romantic relationships.

Self-help and self-motivation books are popular these years. They tell you what you should do by thousands of metaphors. Readers chew on these user manuals of life and get high on the comfort these metaphors offered.

Choices in life are however particular. Generalised and abstract direction or inspiration just won't solve the puzzles in life. Maybe that's why they said self-help makes you feel worse, spood-feeding generic answers just won't cut it.

Metaphors are safe for helping one to grasp a thing otherwise difficult to understand, but could be dangerous when we're talking about choices in life.