I stayed up late waiting for the winds to begin galing.
Watched the late shows, all of them, and then when the wind didn't get to squally I went to bed.
I lay in bed for a while and then realized I was in a
serious discussion with myself about metaphors.
The thing about metaphors is that I didn't really understand what a metaphor was. Pre-NLP era. If someone used the term "mixed metaphor" I was really impressed. They must be geniuses. They were talking about mixed metaphors when I hadn't even figure out what a metaphor was.
It was only when I got involved with learning what I could about NLP that I began to get a grip on what metaphors were. I kept reading all these references to metaphors on NLPtalk and how useful they were to layer suggestion within, I decided to invest in buying a book featuring the skills required for using metaphor as a medium for waking hypnosis.
I don't remember the name of the author... maybe David something... but his book really opened my eyes about what a metaphor existed as. I got about halfway through the book and suddenly I got it. Not only did I finally understand what metaphor is, but understanding what people mean when they talk about metaphors cleared up what mixed-metaphors
are too. Now, I'm a genius too by my own definition. It just feels great to finally arrive.
When I first made a concentrated effort to create a metaphor that was designed to created the desired empression on the other I felt clumsy and inept. Attempting to interweave the goal of my metaphor into the elements of the story felt very heavy and awkward. It seemed to me that my subliminal efforts were hardly that at all, and worse, I felt translucent. As though even Willy the Waver saw right through me and spent most of the time he appeared to be patientlywaiting me out and letting me finish my spiel, he was figuring out what he was going to say to rain on my parade.
I sometimes thought that, but it never happened.
I knew my intent was translucent, but they didn't, and I
couldn't figure out why. It took me an amazingly long time to get the picture. To get to the place I needed to be to understand why they were not seeing through my attempts to make metaphors in the spur of the moment. They simply did not hear me when I invented my metaphors ad lib. I felt ignored and I hurt myself by resolving to emoting.
In each and every case they only heard what they thought I intended in the telling of it. They heard what they would intend if they told the same story. They saw the non-verbal cues as if they were giving them. They only saw in me and my metaphor what they thought was there, and that's what they acted like was so.
"And he grew bold this knight so bold, and round his heart a shadow... grew as he found no spot of ground by the nayme of El Dorado. " eap
This astounded me. I was free. My intent was invisible to them. I could say and do whatever I liked and they would still see only their own interpretation of my intent and behave as if what they interpreted as the truth of my intent was valid to act upon.
Even more astounding, especially when following the
realization I had been granted my most fervid wish and
prayer, to become invisible. They could not see me,
Irreducibly, I could not see them either, only myself in
them, and yet understand that we were both free of any responsibility to the other despite our mutual use of each other as mirrors. I mean, if you can't be used, what use are you?
I was free. The other was free. "Free at last, free at last, Great God Almighty...."
Even the fact that I was now free to create whatever crossed my mind in the continuum of the specious present, I continued to doubt whether my efforts were having any effect at all over in the other. After all, they were responding to their own images no matter how I attempted to influence their processes. How could I be sure my metaphors were making their mark with the other and affecting their decision-making process? Were the results I observed in my person created in the same manner? Was I fooling myself about fooling them?
About this time I realized it didn't matter. I was having so much fun fooling myself into believing my metaphors were getting the specific results I designed that it didn't
matter whether what I designed was the bird-in-hand or no. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.
This arrogant attitude affected the way I looked at NLP. As things went further and I kept getting away with telling my metaphors for my reasons and imagining that I was getting the results I wanted by the telling of them that I decided enough was enough.
This tool was the magic elixir for me. It answered not only my prayers, but it answered my questioning self in it's pendantic quest to know why I was so naturally talented at telling exaggerated lies. I mean I can tell some whoppers. Hardly ever does anyone else believe them, but I can work myself up into a hysterical fervor juking about how I got them to do exactly what I wanted them to do despite the fact that I was a smoe from the the sticks.
Isn't that a funny thing about humans? My main influence in my attempts to learn how to become an actor, or so it seemed, was Edgar Loissin. He told me several times to give the idea of becoming an actor up and develop my talent for lying. He wanted me to become a writer. A man already famous for writing offered to pay my way to a writer's retreat to help
me gain the confidence to develop my style. I still didn't
get it. I didn't get it until I finally figured out that I
could get everything I ever desired if I could ever figure
out what a metaphor is.
Typically, and the wind has even died down now at three o'clook in the morning... waiting, waiting... I've always been a day late and dollar short. Why change now?
Sunday, September 14, 2003
Years ago, back when I was doing a lot of rambling around the U.S., I was picked up while hitch-hiking by a young couple near El Paso, Texas. They asked me where I was going. I gave them an indefinite answer because I didn't really know or care, I was just rambling. I liked talking to the people who picked me up. They were always strangers to me and me to them. Strangers passing each other on the road of life.
This stranger to stranger situation brought some interesting conversations to the table. We seem to drift eventually to topics of a very delicate nature. I didn't know anybody they knew to tell their secrets to. They didn't know anybody that knew me to tell my secrets to. It was just the near-perfect dynamic to get a few things off our chests away from the people who thought they really knew us.
The guy driving the car told me they were going to
eventually end up in Boulder, Colorado, but that they were going to take the backroads to get there, and they had to stop at a commune a little north of Taos, New Mexico to pick up a female friend of theirs to give her a ride to Boulder.
This sounded perfect to me. It would allow me to see some of the backcountry in an area I had never explored previously.
We camped that night near some natural hot springs where hot water oozed out of the side of a cliff into a
tub-like depression someone had carved into the rocks below. It that was big enough for several people to use it like a hot tub, and that unique visit still exists as a wonderful memory for me.
Late the next day we arrived at the New Buffalo Commune. I was very impressed with the place. There were 20-30 people of mixed gender who lived there. This event happened back in the Hippie days and that's the kind of people who lived there. They were all young people and right away it appeared they were of the variety that practiced free love, and the those possibilities presented some pretty exciting images
to contemplate.
The building was composed of a series of adobe structures. The largest building was the main gathering place for the group, and other adobe buildings which were much smaller served as bedrooms for the inhabitants. They had a garden where they grew vegetables out in front of the main building.
When we drove up to this site there were some people working in the garden and others were laboring with creating a large adobe wall that looked like it was intended to be an extension of the main building. The commune painted a very idyllic setting. Lots of smiles and hugs between the inhabitants seemed to show evidence of a true comraderie between them.
We were greeted with those smiles and hugs when we got out of the car. The couple I rode with were well-known among these people and shouts of greeting met them from all around the commune. I was pretty much ignored for the most part, so I wandered into the main building to see what it looked like inside.
I found myself in awe of the work and planning that had gone into it. The ceiling was especially impressive. It was constructed of lodgepole pine poles about 4-6 inches in diameter and stripped of their bark had a polished sheen as they lay next to each other row after row, but they were place in a geometric design that was very appealing. My first thought went to how much work had been put into their careful placement to create the exotic design they displayed.
The ceiling had a smoke hole in the very center to allow
ventilation for the fire pit in the floor of the building
with seating carved into the dirt all around it. This was a large room. It was not square, but it could easily seat
maybe 50-75 people comfortably. There were unique niches all around the room where various objects seemed to be highlighted with natural light coming from a series of holes in the adobe. The total package took my breathe away. The aesthetic appeal of the room delighted me. So much work and hand labor had gone into it, and it showed in every direction I turned. There were specific holes in the wall designed to show certain stars at pivotal times of the year coordinated to the four seasons.
Later, I asked someone who designed this room and the commune itself. I was told that one particular couple originated it and guided it development over the first years, but they had left and no longer lived there. It shocked me somewhat that they could walk away from such beauty and hard work.
The next morning brought an answer with the arrival of some new people to the commune. A young family composed of a couple with two kids. They had been in correspondence with the group about coming there to live. They came in the standard transportation of the time, a gaily painted Volkswagon van loaded to the gills with their possessions. Immediately, several of the inhabitants started poking through their stuff and having a good old time arguing about who was going to get what. I was a little amazed by this scavenger-like activity, and so I asked the guy I rode in with what was going on.
He told me that the people who came to the commune had to contribute all their possessions to the group in order to be part of it. That was the deal. The new couple appeared somewhat disconcerted by the scramble for their stuff, but said nothing. Earlier I had asked my host how the people there got food and drink. Coming from a agricultural background t was obvious the small garden would not provide
nearly enough to support this many people. He told me they got help from county welfare, foodstamps, and other charitable organizations.
Mostly, he said, they lived off the money and possessions of the new arrivals. This appeared to be the reason the people who originated the commune had left it to the scavengers. Their idealism had been destroyed by such evidence of the dark side of human nature. The new people arrived with such high hope and deluded idealism, and later moved on, poorer,
but hopefully wiser for the experience.
This stranger to stranger situation brought some interesting conversations to the table. We seem to drift eventually to topics of a very delicate nature. I didn't know anybody they knew to tell their secrets to. They didn't know anybody that knew me to tell my secrets to. It was just the near-perfect dynamic to get a few things off our chests away from the people who thought they really knew us.
The guy driving the car told me they were going to
eventually end up in Boulder, Colorado, but that they were going to take the backroads to get there, and they had to stop at a commune a little north of Taos, New Mexico to pick up a female friend of theirs to give her a ride to Boulder.
This sounded perfect to me. It would allow me to see some of the backcountry in an area I had never explored previously.
We camped that night near some natural hot springs where hot water oozed out of the side of a cliff into a
tub-like depression someone had carved into the rocks below. It that was big enough for several people to use it like a hot tub, and that unique visit still exists as a wonderful memory for me.
Late the next day we arrived at the New Buffalo Commune. I was very impressed with the place. There were 20-30 people of mixed gender who lived there. This event happened back in the Hippie days and that's the kind of people who lived there. They were all young people and right away it appeared they were of the variety that practiced free love, and the those possibilities presented some pretty exciting images
to contemplate.
The building was composed of a series of adobe structures. The largest building was the main gathering place for the group, and other adobe buildings which were much smaller served as bedrooms for the inhabitants. They had a garden where they grew vegetables out in front of the main building.
When we drove up to this site there were some people working in the garden and others were laboring with creating a large adobe wall that looked like it was intended to be an extension of the main building. The commune painted a very idyllic setting. Lots of smiles and hugs between the inhabitants seemed to show evidence of a true comraderie between them.
We were greeted with those smiles and hugs when we got out of the car. The couple I rode with were well-known among these people and shouts of greeting met them from all around the commune. I was pretty much ignored for the most part, so I wandered into the main building to see what it looked like inside.
I found myself in awe of the work and planning that had gone into it. The ceiling was especially impressive. It was constructed of lodgepole pine poles about 4-6 inches in diameter and stripped of their bark had a polished sheen as they lay next to each other row after row, but they were place in a geometric design that was very appealing. My first thought went to how much work had been put into their careful placement to create the exotic design they displayed.
The ceiling had a smoke hole in the very center to allow
ventilation for the fire pit in the floor of the building
with seating carved into the dirt all around it. This was a large room. It was not square, but it could easily seat
maybe 50-75 people comfortably. There were unique niches all around the room where various objects seemed to be highlighted with natural light coming from a series of holes in the adobe. The total package took my breathe away. The aesthetic appeal of the room delighted me. So much work and hand labor had gone into it, and it showed in every direction I turned. There were specific holes in the wall designed to show certain stars at pivotal times of the year coordinated to the four seasons.
Later, I asked someone who designed this room and the commune itself. I was told that one particular couple originated it and guided it development over the first years, but they had left and no longer lived there. It shocked me somewhat that they could walk away from such beauty and hard work.
The next morning brought an answer with the arrival of some new people to the commune. A young family composed of a couple with two kids. They had been in correspondence with the group about coming there to live. They came in the standard transportation of the time, a gaily painted Volkswagon van loaded to the gills with their possessions. Immediately, several of the inhabitants started poking through their stuff and having a good old time arguing about who was going to get what. I was a little amazed by this scavenger-like activity, and so I asked the guy I rode in with what was going on.
He told me that the people who came to the commune had to contribute all their possessions to the group in order to be part of it. That was the deal. The new couple appeared somewhat disconcerted by the scramble for their stuff, but said nothing. Earlier I had asked my host how the people there got food and drink. Coming from a agricultural background t was obvious the small garden would not provide
nearly enough to support this many people. He told me they got help from county welfare, foodstamps, and other charitable organizations.
Mostly, he said, they lived off the money and possessions of the new arrivals. This appeared to be the reason the people who originated the commune had left it to the scavengers. Their idealism had been destroyed by such evidence of the dark side of human nature. The new people arrived with such high hope and deluded idealism, and later moved on, poorer,
but hopefully wiser for the experience.
