Up: [[Metaphor]] Created: 2025-01-27 > [!Orbit] George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in *Metaphors We Live By* > In all aspects of life… we define our reality in terms of metaphors and then proceed to act on the basis of the metaphors. We draw inferences, set goals, make commitments, and execute plans, all on the basis of how we in part structure our experience, consciously and unconsciously, by means of metaphor. (p. 158) Metaphor is about understanding and experiencing one thing in terms of another. A metaphor is comprised of symbols. This makes exploration of our metaphors ideal for self-discovery and personal growth because symbols are always personal. They may have a common understanding in the collective, such as a [[Circle]] typically understood as a symbol of wholeness. But what matters, when exploring symbols in metaphor or elsewhere. is what it means to YOU. As the quote from Lakoff and Johnson explains, the metaphors we use determine how we think and act. A metaphor can open up possibilities or can trap us in a self-imposed prison. When we change our metaphors, we are often changing as well. Those changes can be first-order transformations or second-order translations. An apt metaphor for this comparison might be the difference between rebuilding the house and redecorating a single room.