You Said Patterns? Let's Play a Game!

[John K]

For example, one of my favorite metaphors for the way I study all the different religions is that it's like holding an apple--I turn the apple all around and look at it from all different directions, because only then do I have a full understanding of what an apple looks like. I can't tell you how many times I've used that metaphor over the decades. So then, this morning when I came to that verse in the Pirkei Avot, I was like, "Whoop. There it is!"

For example, I grew up next to a mountain. I always saw it from one angle. Then when I was older, I remember driving up in the mountains with my family and seeing it from the side and the back for the first time. It was unnerving, like your dad coming home with a shaved beard when you are a kid. I do dataviz for a living, and I can tell you, people get attached to certain map projections and do not like when they are changed. Most people like the US Albers projection with a curved top, not the projections with a flat top, and don't even think about turning the map so east is up, like we did when orienting East by where the sun rose above the horizon each morning.

This reminds me of the Indian parable of the blind men and the elephant:

It also reminds me of Plato's parable of the shadows flickering in a cave.

I guess one of the funniest I've come across is 'Why is an ogre like an onion?' from Shrek. It wouldn't have been anything like so funny if it wasn't sort of a valid metaphor