The Promise of New Metaphors

illustration by christian svanes kolding

Metaphors cleverly allow us to express ideas through other ideas as a way to communicate a deeper understanding of them. They’re beautifully handy because they also shed light on how we think about ideas and concepts yet too often the same metaphors are used over and over again, which diminishes their impact until their meaning is eventually lost.

For example, how many times have you heard the term “silver bullet”? It’s used to explain…