[TT 009] Mighty metaphors, wisdom of the gut, rhyme structure, playful cellists
Hello again Thrivers,
This week has been a notable upswing in my general health, wellbeing, and creativity. I practiced music for the first time in a week, wrote with joy, and found greater depth in my connections with others. Most importantly, I caught a glimpse of my normal healthy verve and vigor. So much to be grateful for.
Also, Write of Passage is wrapping this week and I posted a detailed reflection. Tl;dr net very positive with some substantial value clashes along the way.
Let’s blast off!
On the metaphysics of metaphors
🗯 👁🗨 For the past few years, I’ve diligently extricated violent or destructive visual metaphors from my vernacular. Things like “you crushed it” or “that was the bomb” or “she killed that presentation”. For myself, I’ve found that violent language yields an blood-red lens on reality. Now that I’m paying attention, I notice aggressive and violent framings are pervasive in almost every conversation I have in America.
Then, when I read Maggie’s piece on drawing metaphors, I became obsessed with the concept of metaphor design. In short, every metaphor we choose to express an idea highlights some elements and hides other elements. As I’m reading, writing, and listening, I’m constantly paying attention to the metaphors people choose and what they are seeking to highlight and hide.
Even though many of the concepts were compelling, the absolute worst part of Write of Passage was the metaphor design (what I called the context in my review) to express the ideas. I spoke to how triggering it was in a number of breakout sessions, and alumni mentor Ayomide turned me on to the book Metaphors we live by.
The #1 big idea I’ve internalized is that metaphors are grounded in personal or culturally shared experiences and values. Put another way, how we speak says a lot about who we are. And I sense that the signal we transmit in our metaphors is sensed on a conscious and subconscious level.
OK, I admit the book is a bit heady and dense. I’ve had to look up the word ontological at least a dozen times (being isn’t super natural for me), but the dry framing is worth the astoundingly profound ideas.
Coupling intentional, coherent metaphor systems with eloquent, vivid imagery is a winning combination for enticing writing. I’ll definitely be writing more long form about this soon.
On the wisdom of the gut
🦉 🥼 We are just barely beginning to understand the critical and pervasive importance of our microbiome in every dimension of the “gut-brain axis” - the interactions of our microbiome with our nervous system. Google’s feeds have a gut feeling (algorithmically driven by my recent personal research, of course) that I care a lot about this topic, so I've been getting notifications of recent research in the field.
Scientists from UCSD have concluded that our microbiome influences our expressions of wisdom and loneliness. The study has a small N and isn’t particularly well controlled for confounding factors, but there is an intuitive appeal to the idea. People with larger social networks have more diverse biomes, and that diversity adds to intestinal resiliency and more stable function of hormonal regulation that impacts cognition and emotional regulation. Also, weaker biomes negatively impact mental and immune health. I’m not keen on the leap from cognitive function -> wisdom, emotional regulation -> loneliness, or correlation -> causation, but I do agree there are interesting areas to explore in this line of reasoning.
One outstanding question is how much of our biome is driven by genetics vs. our environment (nature vs. nurture). Recent research from Harvard suggests that we control our gut destiny by what we consume (primarily our diets) and other environmental toxins.
As the mental fog of my own gut issues lifts, I’m starting to see the critical importance of tenderly tending to our belly health.
I am far from an expert, though I have been learning a lot (especially about small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), adequate nutrition during exclusion diets, and FODMAP re-integration). If you have any awareness or resources to share, or care to riff / commiserate with your own gut challenges, hit reply and tell me what’s coming up for you.
On rhyming with reason
🎤 🏆 I grew up on rap and, although most of it sounds abysmal to me, I have a deep appreciation for the lyrical artistry of some rap artists.
One of the absolute best lyricists of our generation is Eminem. He’s very prolific and very profane. Most of his work is unpalatable to me, but the best of his work is moving in ways I can hardly begin to fathom. I’ve been listening to Lose Yourself as my consistent pump me up song for 18 years, and I’m in awe every single time I listen.
Thankfully, another fellow WoP alumn Florian turned me on to this video of a songwriter dissecting the internal rhyme structure of Lose Yourself (jump to minute 3 for the song breakdown). That eloquently puts to words why I find Eminem's meter and rhyme so rich and engaging. Some of the other his work that really stands out is the haunting White America (especially around minute 4), the deeply emotional Not Afraid, and the (very explicit) stunningly complex Rap God.
I was thinking about rap this week because my friend Glenn sent me this AMAZING rap called Lost by NF featuring Hospin. The lyrics are so brilliant, the rhythmical complexity reminds me of Eminem at his best, and the underlying message is very compelling to me. Plus the visual metaphor in the music video adds another layer of awesome.
I don’t listen to rap very often any more (I’m more into Arabic maqam, acoustic guitar, and hand pan drums nowadays), but I can’t get over the emotive power of bumping beats with brilliant lyrics.
Oh, I would be remiss if I didn’t offer this super high production value gem of a rap music video.
On cellists with humor and flair
🎻 👨👨👦 For a slight change of musical pace, this group of playful cellists from Vienna is awesome. Here is a particularly fun piece.
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Rhythmically yours,
~Henry