Metaphors for Life

Daniel Pink talks about the six senses that will be important for workers in the "Conceptual Age", the age that is dawning upon us as the information age wanes behind. One of those senses is Symphony or the ability to see the grand plan, the big picture, the overarching idea. One aspect of understanding Symphony is making Metaphors. Having read this, I've been more aware of the prevalence of Metaphors around me. Consider these gems from master philosopher Simon Cowell:

"You've got the personality of a Candle."

"That was like a Theme Park performance"

"That Song reminded me of Buttercups"

What? Is it just me or do any of these make sense?

Write Dan and let him know. Comment to Dan with your own Simon metaphors. Comment to me too. You should be able to link to my site via the sidebar. Simon's metaphors are metaphors for living! And don't you forget! (my website is Genuinely Dynamic Maverick)

100 Questions

I once did an exercise where I sat down with a notebook and wrote 100 questions (this is before I had kids). The first 20 or so were fairly obvious, but by the time I hit 80 or so, they were definitely in the "outside the box" category. The obligation to come up with 100 led to a more creative & insightful result than if the exercise had been "come up with as many questions as you can."

There's something very stimulating & productive about having a goal, even though 100 is a completely arbitrary number. It could just as well have been 113 or 97.

Same thing with blogging (or any type of writing). If the exercise is "Blog/write every day," at some point, you run out of obvious things to say. Some bloggers go the easy "here's what I had for breakfast" route, or "wow, it's cold here," or some such. I'm sure some of my previous 240 posts are in that category, despite myself.

But a committment to post something to the blog each day at least offers the potential to push us beyond the ordinary, into the realm of the surprise.