Thursday, March 19, 2020

Love Metaphors From Literature and Pop Culture

Love Metaphors From Literature and Pop Culture In literature, music, and popular culture, love is often used as a metaphor, a  trope  or  figure of speech  in which an implied comparison is made between two unlike things that actually have something in common. For example, when Neil Young sings, Love is a rose, the word rose is the vehicle for the term love, the tenor. Or as Milan Kundera wrote in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, I have said before that metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. He might have added that love sometimes ends with a metaphor as well. Like the experience of love itself, metaphors make connections. So its no surprise that love has been imagined, examined, and remembered through a wide variety of figurative comparisons, as the quotes below show. Love as a Fruit or Plant As the collection of passages in this and the below sections demonstrate, love has been compared to everything from a plant to a truck. The metaphors in this collection are anything but conventional. Love is a fruit, in season at all times and within the reach of every hand. Anyone may gather it and no limit is set.– Mother Teresa, No Greater Love I look at you and wham, Im head over heels.I guess that love is a banana peel.I feel so bad and yet Im feeling so well.I slipped, I stumbled, I fell– Ben Weisman and Fred Wise, I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell, sung by Elvis Presley in the film Wild in the Country Love is a spice with many tastes- a dizzying array of textures and moments.– Wayne Knight as Newman in the final episode of Seinfeld Now that youre gone I can seeThat love is a garden if you let it go.It fades away before you know,And love is a garden- it needs help to grow.– Jewel and Shaye Smith, Love Is a Garden Love is a plant of the most tender kind,That shrinks and shakes with every ruffling wind– George Granville, The British Enchanters As a Phenomenon of Nature Washington Irving  compared love to the rosy cloud in the morning of life, but many others have likened love to various phenomena of nature from lightning to stars and fire, as the quotes in this section demonstrate. Oh, love is a journey with water and stars,with drowning air and storms of flour;love is a clash of lightnings,two bodies subdued by one honey.– Pablo Neruda, Sonnet 12 [Love] is an ever-fixed markThat looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wandering bark,Whose worths unknown, although his height be taken.– William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116 Love is a fire.It burns everyone.It disfigures everyone.It is the worlds excusefor being ugly.– Leonard Cohen, The Energy of Slaves Loves fire, if it once goes out, is hard to kindle.– German proverb An Animal Kurt Vonnegut called love a hawk with velvet claws, but many singers, writers, authors, and figures in popular culture have compared love to various animals, including dogs, birds, and even a crocodile. Love is a dog from hell.– Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog From Hell Loves wing  moults  when caged and captured,Only free he soars enraptured.– Thomas Campbell, Loves Philosophy Love is a crocodile in the river of desire.– Bhartá ¹â€ºhari, Ã…Å¡atakatraya Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.–  H.L. Mencken, A Little Book in C Major And Even a Disease Love has been compared to many things, but surprisingly, some have likened it to a disease, as the eclectic mix of quotes shows in this final section. They say it is better to travel than to arrive. Its not been my experience, at least. The journey of love has been rather a lacerating, if well-worth-it, journey.– D.H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious Love is a truck and an open road,Somewhere to start and a place to go.– Mojave 3, Truck Driving Man They say love is a two-way street. But I dont believe it, because the one Ive been on for the last two years was a dirt road.– Terry McMillan, Waiting to Exhale Love is the master key that unlocks the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and most easily of all, the gate of fear.– Oliver Wendell Holmes, A Moral Antipathy Love is a beggar, most importunate,Uncalled he comes and makes his dear demands– Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, Love Is a Beggar I thought love would be my cureBut now its my disease.– Alicia Keyes, Love Is My Disease Is it natural for a man to fall in love? Love is a disease and disease knows no laws.– Ivan Turgenev, Diary of a Superfluous Man

Monday, March 2, 2020

8 Ways to Make a Terrible First Impression

8 Ways to Make a Terrible First Impression You know how important the first impression is. That’s why it can be really easy to screw it up- even if you only screw it up by trying too hard. Here are a few ways to really make a belly flop of your first impression. Study them and make sure to pivot in another direction! 1. Try Too HardWe know you want to be memorable. So do they. If you’re too witty, too eager, too high energy; if you finish your interviewer’s sentences or jump in too quickly with a personal anecdote or some sidebar to explain some aspect of your resume; if you’re generally just too RIGHT THERE rather than making an effort to listen to your conversation partner rather than perform†¦ then you’re trying too hard. And whomever you’re talking too is probably more tired than intrigued.2. Being Too â€Å"Different†If you’re laboring to point out your personal quirks in a transparent effort to set yourself apart from the crowd, you might actually be doing you rself a disservice. There’s nothing wrong with being average or above average. You don’t have to shout how unique you are at every conversational turn.3. Bad Body LanguageHow you carry yourself matters, too. Try not to cross your arms across your chest. Make sure to smile and make eye contact- as failure to do both can make you seem hostile and untrustworthy. And whatever you do, be respectful of others’ personal space. Don’t be the space invader.4. InappropriatenessDon’t gossip.  You’ll come off looking terrible. And don’t make rude or inappropriate jokes- particularly off-color ones or potentially political or bigoted ones either. No one will want to get to know you better if you’re rude or racist.5. RudenessIf you keep checking your watch- or worse, staring at your phone the entire time, then you deserve to make a bad impression. Grow up. Put your devices down and be present for the five minutes it takes to make a good imp ression.6. OversharingDon’t try to forge instant intimacy by sharing all the intimate details of your life. Your personal history should stay at least a little personal for the first 10 minutes of a new connection. And you never know when you might put your foot in your mouth because of not knowing anything about the other person’s personal history. Also, you and this person have literally just met. How can you be sure they’re trustworthy?7. NosinessOn the other hand, don’t ask a bunch of nosy personal questions to try and find out that other person’s intimate personal history. Let that stuff happen naturally over time as the relationship builds. If you even make it out of the conversation with a relationship to build, that is.8. SteamrollingThis includes filling every silence with chatter†¦ and assuming the other person agrees with you about everything you say, and then ranting on and on about it. Take a moment to step back and give your conv ersation partners some space to speak. Try listening for once and don’t be too stingy to relinquish your spot in the driver’s seat.