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LOL ...
Ok so - here's the deal.
All metaphor - and that includes concrete metaphors such as cars, Rolex watches, high heeled shoes and castles on the top of the hill, as well as all language, all words, and all internal representations upon which these are based - is idiosyncratic, and intrapersonal.
Idiosyncratic means that it's specific to one individual, and intrapersonal means that it's inside that one individual, and nowhere else.
If you don't know that, you make the mistake of thinking that "everyone knows" something, and that what they know is the same what you "know."
This, however, is not the case.
Everyone knows what they know and what they know is not the same as that which other people know, who also know what they know.
So, for example, one person "knows" that God is a kind of a big father type guy who lives in the clouds, and another person "knows" that God is a structural pattern that underlies all actions in the Multiverse. A third "knows" that God is a big breasted woman with six arms, and a fourth "knows" for a fact that God doesn't exist at all.
Put these four into a room with a fifth guy who "knows" that you are not to make an internal representation of God at all or else you're sinning massively and will go to hell, let them loose on each other, and you'll get the kinds of arguments which eventually lead to wars, attempts at genocide, and atrocities worse than our worst nightmares (which are also idiosyncratic, intrapersonal, and of course, very metaphorical!).
Now you may ask, "How the devil is it possible that five different people from the same city can make such totally different internal representations to end up with such incompatible, idiosyncratic, intrapersonal metaphors?!"
The answer to that is very simple.
When our five friends were but little squirts, happily playing in the mud if they were allowed to do so, at some point, some thing happened and they went inside, "Oh! Now I understand what God means!"
And they added the word "God" and its idiosyncratic, intrapersonal meaning to their unfolding dictionary of words, metaphors and internal representations on that very day, in that very moment, in an event of learning and labelling.
Now, I once met a guy who swore that the Lord of the Universe was in fact, a frog. He got this idea because of an LSD trip and waking up face down in a swamp with frog staring down on him; shit happens, as they say.
"They" also reckoned my frog worshipping friend was a schizophrenic but he only had used that human propensity to add words and meanings to their internal dictionary in slightly more unusual circumstances than most end up doing; his reasoning was as sound as anyone else's on the topic.
"Ok," some wise guy might say. "Ok, fair enough. For stuff like God, sure, but that's not important to me, I get by fine without God, in fact, God would be a hindrance in my daily struggle to pay the bills and find love, scraps of it, wherever I can ..."
Yes, well but here's the thing. These idiosyncratic, intrapersonal metaphors are everywhere and all the time. Every single time you walk up to a lady at the bar and open your mouth, this same confusion is in action.
You might talk about your favourite holiday.
What do you mean by "holiday?"
Can you be sure the lady in question is talking about the same thing as you are?
Can you be sure that that jacket you're wearing which in your world is cool and trendy isn't a metaphor for a slimy weasel in hers?
In fact, you can't be sure. Not until you explore, investigate, elicit the internal representation behind the word, behind the object, behind - everything.
Because the fact is that there's an idiosyncratic intrapersonal metaphor behind every thing. For every one.
I do believe the awesome realisation that each and every person walking the Earth today has their own idiosyncratic intrapersonal metaphors they know to be "the one and only truth" in every fibre of their being is the beginning of actually growing up.
A little kid will hold their hands in front of their own eyes and declare, "Now you can't see me anymore!"
That's the same failure to understand as is the idea that when you say anything at all and to anyone at all that they will know what you are talking about.
Or that you will know what they are talking about. It goes both ways.
I have a challenge for you.
The next time you are having an argument with anyone about anything at all, no matter how trifling or how mundane, stop.
Try and localise the main point of the argument, the main word involved. And then find out what the one you're arguing with actually means by that word, discover the story behind the word.
"You don't love me!"
"What does love mean to you? What is it, exactly? How would you describe it?"
"When someone thinks about you when you're not there."
"I do that all the time, so how can you say I don't love you?"
"Because you forgot to buy me a birthday present!"
"I forgot your birthday, but I was thinking of you ... of your smile, how I feel about you, looking forward to seeing you again ... I was thinking of you not of dates and numbers ..."
If you know that for another person "love is" being thought about when they're not there, how easy is it to give evidence of that? How many arguments will be avoided, how much better will the relationship become over time?
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Here's one I experienced myself, some time ago. This is two partners in business.
"Time we made some radical changes here!"
"No! No way! It's working well enough, this is not the time for making changes!"
An argument ensued that became more and more heated until finally, one of them remembered the idiosyncratic, intrapersonal nature of metaphor and asked the key question, "What do you mean by change?"
Person A replied, "Change is when you get out of the shit you're in and into a better place."
Person B replied, "Change is horrible, a catastrophe, when everything descends into chaos ..."
There it is again. If you enquired a little deeper, both would have been able to identify that moment in time when they were but little squirts, playing with their mud pies, and something happened, and they went, "Oh! Ok, so that's what change means ..."
And that's what it meant for each one of them in their separate, idiosyncratic and intrapersonal metaphorical world ever since.
These two guys eventually agreed to "change their minds about what change means" and came up with change to mean evolution, at least in the context of their business. And thus, the endless conflict ceased and the business had a chance to finally, finally, grow, develop, unfold, evolve - change.
For the better.
And this is why Idiosyncratic Intrapersonal Metaphor Matters!
Dr Silvia Hartmann
April 2011
* You might want to check out Events Psychology - How To Understand Yourself, And Other People.
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