#DigiWriMos / The Invisibles / Thought on the Metaphor Project

The world is becoming more visual. Almost all of our social media and interaction online have some pictorial element. From icons to robust ads (with color and motion), we are constantly connecting image to word. That being said, I write is to create something that someone can imagine, conjure, and experience in a way that isn't attached to my image, but with the user (the reader and creator). And the stories that are important to tell are those containing "invisibles" or things that cannot be seen or even reconciled without individual interpretation.

The idea of "invisibles" comes from the idea that no one thing represents what we are trying to describe. No one can tell you what love looks like. They can try, and you can accept or reject it. But love is complex and usually needs a series of figurative ideas and elements to make it work. Most people have a complex and changing vision of "invisbles" like love - so in one story it will appear significantly different than the next. 

In October, I discussed the thought of creating a study on the metaphor of rhizomatic learning to define why we use the metaphor to explain elements of this type of connective learning. It is a tricky endeavor. The use of a metaphor is a figurative affair that must pay off on both sides of the metaphor. So much resides on the reader's experience, the metaphorical correlation, and the way it is applied. How the hell can you possibly study those elements? Perhaps you can't but you can collect metaphors and see how they are being used. It reminds me of electron colliders - you never see the collision, but the explosion after the fact. "Invisibles" are the quintessential reason for writing. It is why poets and writers can spend a year writing a novel that creates something bigger, something epic, something brilliant that has never before been experienced. It makes sense that religion and myth derive from oral and written manifestations. Gods draw off the tongue and miracles emerge from the page when we use figurative language to define the possibility (see what I did there?).

If we look for the origins of why we write and why we admire writing - it comes from how it changes our perspective of a person, a time, or an object. Amazing stories change us because we see and learn something new about what is possible in the world. But that doesn't come from facts - it comes from the figurative nature of listening and hearing words. Figurative language has a power (simile) to compare, to encompass (symbolism), to bring to life (personification), and to experience a visionary world. Writers know that there is a little bit of magic in these things called "invisibles" -- not because they can cast spells or turn a prince into a frog, but they can give you an experience that is refined. Our lives are not stories filled with "invisibles" - and that is what we long for when we read. By way of the word, we experience them deeply.*



*I typically add an image with my posts to make them a bit more dynamic, but this one deserves words alone.