I like to work through metaphors. I included a portion of my master's thesis about metaphors and the roles they play in the evolution of public policy - and discussions of social phenomenon metaphors allow us to talk about complex, unwieldy things and occurrences . Now I'm much more interested in how we use them in day to day language and specifically songs.
When we think about incremental change we use the metaphor of tossing a pebble into a pond an watching the ripples expanding in all directions at once, the ripple affect about how change occurs. I wonder how this metaphor "carries water" when we think about life as a rush river rather than a placid pond and we throw the same stone into the crashing rapids of our overstimulated lives, what change then? Is there a butterfly effect of change that cannot be perceived but is every bit as "real" as the ripples in the pond or is the pebble just washed away meaninglessly?
My comment was that the pebble thrown into a rushing river will be tossed and turned and bruised and beaten until it finally finds calm water and drops to the bottom and is still. No ripple effect - kind of the opposite everything converging on the stone.
ReplyDeletepebbles thrown into a river
ReplyDeletecarried off to sea
tumbled and eroded
grains of sand on the beach