Symbolic Language Basics
The study of our minds’ symbolic language is extremely relevant to the study of metaphor, persuasion, propaganda, and covert hypnosis.
Your so-called reality is made up of an excess of symbols. There are natural symbols and arbitrary symbols. Natural symbols exist regardless of human thought and language. It is probably more appropriate to call a natural symbol a sign. For example, certain cloud formations are signs of specific actions in nature building up to different types of weather; it wasn’t sailors who decided that the presence of cirrus and altocumulus clouds high in the atmosphere would indicate a forecast of rough weather. This relationship already existed naturally.
When you have to go to a public restroom, how do you know which door to enter? As a young child you may have chosen randomnly without a parent or guardian to guide you. Well, how did they know where to go? Because they learned that two stick figures glued to the doors represented a man and a woman. You can argue most people would understand these symbols logically, but that is not the point. These symbols never existed naturally, they were learned. Someone thought it up, everyone else accepted it consciously or unconsciously, and it finally became a convention. Now there are thousands of conventional symbols you experience everyday, created by the minds of others, which are now creating your reality. Symbols are running our lives.
It is interesting to note that certain symbols have different meaning in different cultures. Does that mean they are experiencing a different reality?
Since symbols are mostly a visual language, I’ll begin this category’s discussion with the color red.
The color red can invoke a strong myriad of emotions. Many cultures use red to convey the meaning of danger. Why not blue or pink or some other arbitrary color?
Red is the color of blood of course, and a reminder of our own mortality. The blood is associated with such emotions as love, anger, hate and sexual arousal. These associations are both positive and negative, but blood and its color clearly remind us of the pain of death.
But let’s be fair, red is not all doom and gloom. Red also signifies energy and power, possibly from its association to fire.
In modern daily life red is used to signify danger, instruction to stop, and so on. Many official documents use red to signify importance.
Do you usually take in colors simply on an unconscious level?
Next time try to notice the color red, how it is used, and why.
You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. Remember — all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.
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Hi again,
Well now, these days I take blue pills - actually a variant, but same effect - and the story starts all over again and it is better than ever!
And as for red, I was born in Manchester, England (though now lived in South Africa for many years) and red is the colour of Manchester United soccer team so that is the what I think of.
A cryptic ending to this post - I’ll think further …
Keep going with these posts - you have much to say and I appreciate all of it.
- Graham.