Metaphors are our way of losing ourselves in semblances or treading water in a sea of seeming.
Interpretation
Metaphors help us navigate complex ideas and emotions, but can also lead to confusion or detachment from reality.
In this quote, Roberto Bolano suggests that metaphors serve as tools for understanding the world around us by creating connections between seemingly unrelated concepts. However, he warns that relying too heavily on these figurative expressions can result in a disconnection from the true nature of reality, leading us to merely 'tread water' rather than engage deeply with life.
In practice
In a speech about creativity, one might use this quote to emphasize the power of language in shaping our perceptions.
Coincidence obeys no laws and if it does we don't know what they are. Coincidence, if you'll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of God at every moment on our planet. A senseless God making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In that hurricane, in that osseous implosion, we find communion.
The sky, at sunset, looked like a carnivorous flower.
I'd obviously never heard of the group, but my ignorance in literary matters is to blame for that (every book in the world is out there waiting to be read by me).
Every book in the world is out there waiting to be read by me.
Bright colours in the west, giant butterflies dancing as night crept like a cripple toward the east.
Being alone makes us stronger. That’s the honest truth. But it’s cold comfort, since even if I wanted company no one will come near me anymore.
Modern travelling is not travelling at all; it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel.
The Rudderless World is not shaped by vague metaphysical Forces. It is not God who kills the Children. Not Fate that butchers them or Destiny that feeds them to the Dogs. ... It´s us. Only us.
but their eyes were as cold blue glass buttons.
The day that hunger is eradicated from the earth there will be the greatest spiritual explosion the world has ever known. Humanity cannot imagine the joy that will burst into the world.
The minute the church and pastors start saying what do people want and then giving it to them, we betray our calling. We're called to have people follow Jesus. We're called to have people learn how to forgive their enemies.
Civilization is a progress from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity toward a definite, coherent heterogeneity.
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