Metaphors of the Self: Roads and Wheels
When the rubber meets the road, everything is put to the test. This is the metaphor that speaks most poetically to the testing of the mettle, and it’s one that is entirely useful in making one’s own plans for a successful future. Metaphors are very much like positive affirmations, but there’s a difference. With positive affirmations, their effectiveness is based on simplicity and repetition. They are usually statements that reveal a powerful truth in a new way, and can still carry their power of meaning even when they are repeated numerous times throughout any given day. With metaphors, there is a complexity to them that is rather hidden. They begin like affirmations, with a simplicity that is attractive, but they are also juicy enough that more can be understood from them with deeper contemplations. The road metaphor can take on something as general as the open highway, or as specific as kmc wheels and still encourage and strengthen one’s inner convictions.
In many cases, the metaphors that work the best are also the ones that are the most familiar. One experience can serve to bring wisdom to another experience. Life as a journey, as an adventure, or as a temporary trip is a metaphor that seems to run across time and culture, revealing a common thread of experience in the human story that speaks to the notion of the road. West African proverbs often speak of the road, and it serves as a very rich metaphor that stands for many kinds of experiences in the world. In the North American myths of the road, there are stories of expansion, discovery, loss, and coming of age. Although these can be seen as very specific to the literatures from here, the same stories do tend to repeat all over the world. There are some connotations to road and travel metaphors that are particular, like linking runflat tires to notions of power and performance, but even these sentiments do translate across rivers and oceans. The power of a metaphor, then, is one that can cover enormous distances, and their usefulness is really proven only by the test of time. In terms of finding useful metaphors for self-improvement, the road is one of the more useful ones. It is common across time and space, but it is also part of most people’s daily experience, suggesting that even the every day is more mythical than we might imagine.