Metaphors for Everyday Creativity

Posted by Susan Caplan Aug 25, 2009

The other day I was trying a creative problem-solving technique where you force together two things that seem to have nothing in common. The problem revolved around losing weight. The day before I had ripped an article on felting out of a magazine and it was sitting on the couch next me. What does losing weight have to do with felting?

Nothing. But, as I started to write, glancing at the pictures of a felting tool punching through roving, or yarn not spun, into a felt hat, I realized that yes, dieting is about changing our lives. We take our life (that hat) and push new habits (the roving) into it so we get something that looks distinctly different.

If we try to glue some decorations onto that hat, they’ll fall off after a while and we’ll be left with the original hat festooned in globs of glue. Isn’t this like extreme diets? We change things for a while but eventually, things go back to the way they started (perhaps with a few more pounds).

However, when the wool is punched into the item, well, then, it becomes part of that item, a seamless addition. Isn’t that what we need to do when dieting? Develop habits that last a lifetime instead of a few months. This simile, felting is like weight loss (or, this metaphor, felting is weight loss), seems too “out there” until you play with it, explain it, connect the ideas.

I did the same thing this morning, musing in my journal why I overate potato salad at dinner the night before. I realized that I didn’t want it to go to waste, by throwing it out. But, isn’t overeating it just causing it to go to waste on my hips? This set me off thinking about other things I waste – time, energy, etc.

What is waste? I defined it as not using something. Waste is more than wasting paper or wasting leftovers. When I complain about wasting time, I’m really complaining about not using my time in a way important to me. When I give energy to idle chitchat, I’m not using my ability to connect on a deeper level with the people important to me. Waste is not so much about giving or throwing unwanted things away as not claiming for ourselves the something that we truly want.

Try creating metaphors for areas of your life where you want new insights, places that need some creative problem solving to get you out of a slump. Ask a question, “How can I…?” “What would be the best way for me to …?” and write that question on paper. Next, open up a magazine or catalog to a random page and point the tip of your pen to a word or object. Now, force that word or that object, to be the answer to your question.

The first few times, your responses may clunk along. After a while, the ideas will flow. For example, you may be mulling over a problem at work while driving to the store. When you walk in the store, the first thing to catch your attention is a display of toy Dalmatians. You realize that you’ve been looking at your situation in a black and white manner and that you need to find new options as opposed to the two you’ve debating between.

Creating metaphors for your life will increase your creativity by making you see your life in new ways. Discover what comes out of the practice of combining concepts that seem to have nothing to do with one another.