Metaphor

I always find it deflating in a spiritual conversation when someone draws a powerful connection between real phenomena and then refers to it as a “metaphor.”

A metaphor is literally a figure of speech; it’s not something you bump into in the wild by accident.

Could it be that there is a widespread fear of numinous experiences that triggers people into falling back into storytelling to explain it from a safe distance? dr_evil_pinkie.gif

Honestly, my objections to fixation on metaphor start on the literary level. Making your life into head-literature is a second-order problem rooted in fascination with the cleverness of devices. I find that aesthetically unpleasant, which — to be clear — is a perfectly sound basis for a moral objection.

It’s like, “You know what would really take this experience the rest of the way to awesome? If I felt smart for comparing it to something else.”