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. Thatβs the honest truth. But itβs cold comfort, since even if I wanted company no one will come near me anymore.
Peace is not made at the council table or by treaties, but in the hearts of men.
By comparison with other less hectic days, the city is unconfortable and inconvenient; but New Yorkers tempramentally do not crave comfort and convenience - if they did they would live elsewhere.
I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still means something to me. It's still my symbol of rebellion -- against a stagnant status quo, against our hypocritical houses of God, against people whose minds are closed to others' ideas.
Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions....there was never a country where the majority of the people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these institutions.
Under the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea. However pernicious an opinion may seem, we depend for its correction not on the conscience of judges and juries but on the competition of other ideas.
Christianity is at its best when it is peculiar, marginalized, suffering, and it is at its worst when it is popular, credible, triumphal, and powerful.
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