The Metaphor of The Original

“She saw their travels in terms of adverts and

a long talcum-white beach with the tropical

breeze tossing the palms and her hair;

he saw it in terms of forbidden foods,

frittered away time, and

ghastly expenses.”

Vladimir Nabokov, “The Original of Laura”

The wish for the ‘original’ in things is a wish many of us secretly have, because the ‘today’ is the every new day in which we find out how non-original we are. Through our lenses we see the ‘world’ unfolding in billion of complex things, general and specialized, exotic and familiar, fragmented and fractalic … and we try to ‘fit’ somewhere inside this growing plethora of ideas and words. We try to fit, by ‘un-fitting’, because what homo inter-net-icus is desperately seeking for is the ‘original’.

What is original, and what is its metaphor?

Original is defined by the dictionary (http://dictionary.reference.com) as:

–adjective

1. belonging or pertaining to the origin or beginning of something, or to a thing at its beginning: The book still has its original binding.

2. new; fresh; inventive; novel: an original way of advertising.

3. arising or proceeding independently of anything else: an original view of history.

4. capable of or given to thinking or acting in an independent, creative, or individual manner: an original thinker.

5. created, undertaken, or presented for the first time: to give the original performance of a string quartet.

6. being something from which a copy, a translation, or the like is made: The original document is in Washington.

–noun

7. a primary form or type from which varieties are derived.

8. an original work, writing, or the like, as opposed to any copy or imitation: The original of this is in the British Museum.

9. the person or thing represented by a picture, description, etc.: The original is said to have been the painter's own house.

10. a person whose ways of thinking or acting are original: In a field of brilliant technicians he is a true original.

11. Archaic . an eccentric person.

12. Archaic . a source of being; an author or originator.

As an adjective we frequently think of ‘original’ in its 2^nd or 4^th Definition, yet time and ever changing paradigms in language and linguistics made us forget the origin of original. An etymological enquiry would lead us to the result of early 14c., from L. originalis, from originem (nom. origo) "beginning, source, birth," from oriri "to rise". To be ‘original’ had been a metaphor for being a source, a creator and an inspiration. It was and still is a metaphor for the dormant thought in us, that lets us aspire to being gods of our own universe.

‘Original’ is the metaphor we need to continue hoping in progress, and a lot of depression today has its origins in the fact that there is too much of everything all around us, in 6Dof (Six Degrees of Freedom, see Wiki). There is no ‘source’ anymore, and not even the psychologically perceived possibility of becoming a source, an originator – of becoming more yourself … because any word you invent, might return at least a few hundred pages on Google.

And the metaphor of ‘original’ is fading once again into other meanings … original art … original advertizing. The world of add and of shocking colors, while people try less to ‘create’ and more to ‘compete’.

What is your ‘original’, forgotten in the dead valley of meanings and copy-paste visions?

While trying to understand the metaphor of ‘original’, we actually, as always, will subconsciously (but what is subconsciously anyway?) look first for a metaphor of our Selfs. Caught in a world of Projective Tests, one is experiencing individuality and creativity in an ‘inside’ that seldom becomes an outside.

So, once we strip our shadows, we can start looking for the metaphor of the ‘original’ … it’s somewhere there, at the origins.

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The Metaphor of Frida Kahlo

“I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows,

but now the damned things have learned to swim.”

Frieda Kahlo

Seeing dimensions is one great success of the postmodern geometrical mind. Three dimensions, two dimensions, one dimension … and while the mind returns upon itself to visually fancy even more dimension, I wonder if we ever ‘hear’ dimensions. If we ever ‘feel’ dimensions. If we ever ‘smelled’ or ‘tasted’ dimensions.

I hear now in mono-dimensions, and this is my first metaphor.

One hundred years ago, Frida Kahlo opened her eyes to one new weird environment, full of colors, feelings and pain. Her metaphor was her secret mental life, which, in a way every one of us has (the metaphor AND the secret mental life) – enclosed, hidden beyond layers and layers of that we call the official Self.

Frieda’s metaphor is one of the realism we desire to perceive in the middle of surrealistic nonsense we call ‘world’. The static, silent form of the “I”, sitting in a little dark place and chanting the ‘daily’ story of a chronological ‘life’. The colors and situation, the stages around the “I” might change, but the “I” remains unmoved, always about the level of our eyes that stare back to a non-existent mirror.

The metaphor of Frida Kahlo teaches us the sheer (what might be called) psychosis, that our mind, in some fleeting moments, reflects in ItSelf. Because ‘being human’ is a pose of an invented metaphor. ‘Being human’ are two words.

… understanding fades the more deeper an analysis starts to be.

But there is a way out of the labyrinth of metaphors. This way may teach us that to understand the essential, you must first ascend to the ocean of superficiality. If you do not want to drown, while trying to understand the nature of water, you must float above it. All what you will understand is perhaps your own reflection in the waves, but once you recognize it as Self, you’ll be able to distinguish it from the water.

And the nature of water will be better understood, then by someone drowning, and claiming deepness.

… thus, to get to the essential, beyond all metaphors, you ought to become a metaphorist.

… and find your reflection.