When I was young, I was lying in bed in that dozy half-dream where your mind is busy but shutting down for the night. I felt a kind of ebbing wave wash over me, a physical feeling like floating in a warm lapping ocean. I distinctly recall a feeling of pure enlightenment, that I understood perfectly some profound universal truth. In my memory, the feeling is tied to a glimpse of stars in deep space, and that strange wavelike feeling that washes over me still on rare occasions. But I can't recall that epiphany, the meaning that I glimpsed so clearly. At the time, I thought to myself the same thought that continues to devour great ideas still today: "I must remember to write that down when I wake up."
On retrospect, I think now that I must have made some metaphorical connection; that some simile forming in my mind must have resonated strongly, and that I felt I had discovered something profound through it.
Isn't is strange that this is so often the case? We find such significance in metaphors and similes, in looking at something as if it were something else. We discover something profound by making these connections. A simile is like a little epiphany, a deeper understanding—or perhaps a broader understanding—that gives us new eyes to see with.
This blog is about my little epiphanies.
Drawing connections and finding life's little epiphanies
