Metaphors we Live by and the Resources that Make it Happen

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Memes Articles>>Introduction>>Definition>>Green>>Ecocapitalist>>More Essays

Memes: The Metaphors of Modern Culture 

Becoming Onself   

"We live our lives according to a script based in the lives of our parents," claimed 20th century psychologists.   Breaking free of our parental script and rewriting the messages in our heads is the essence of counseling techniques demonstrated by Dr. Phil, Oprah, and others on TV.  Replacing an unhealthy mental script with one that reflects a set of mature personal values, self-confidence, and joy are part of growing up, getting healthy, and becoming authentic.

Podcasts for MP3's, ebooks, and books to help you reach your full potential abound. Get some from Simply Audiobooks, Ereadable, or Amazon.com

Getting to the Source

As an esoteric reader and subscriber to ideas, I have in my mind blended the vocabulary and meanings of many concepts of psychology, cognitive science, science, religion, politics, philosophy, education, new age readings, documentaries, conversations, lectures, sermons, and knowledge bases.  Just like we all do.  What results is a set of concepts that describes the world to me and that allows me to understand cause and effect and human interactions as well as any other typical citizen of my culture. 

The concepts that influence my thinking have names; they can be verbalized.  They are the memes that shape my thinking, the metaphors of my life.  I am too stubborn and skeptical to live by any one meme, but the metaphors do influence me, even unconsciuosly at times.

The 2 images above are called "Becoming Myself" and "Tumbling." They are fractal flames. Get mugs, t-shirts, journal, and cards with these images. And check-out the memes used as bullets for the section headings. All of these images of ©VCCTI are available as mugs and stuff and as presentation template designs. Just follow the links!

The Value of Memes in Communication  

Metaphors and memes are used with great success to entertain and persuade by script and speech writers, politicians, and advertising propaganda artists.  Educators consciously use key phrases and images in teaching to foster learning; products and companies are branded with sound bites; and search engines use keywords to locate the sought-after information for internet users data-mining their way to knowledge, services, and products.  These concepts help shape the frames or concept maps that our brains use to make sense of ideas.

Essays on Memes    

This essay series will present some of the memes as metaphors used in American culture today by TV writers, comedians, pop culture, marketing and business trainers and advertisers, politicians, and so many others to communicate information and persuade audiences.   Along the way, we will discuss new words and images that enrich the modern English language and society as our vocabulary and concepts grow.  

Memes at Work

Memes proliferate as rapidly as kudzu--or ivy--to accommodate the new technologies and discoveries.  Our words and images sometimes rise to international prominance as countries across the global neighborhood adopt these memes and are influenced by their world-view or ideology.

By ©David Susilo - FOTOLIA, this tree against the horizon alone in a field is not the branding image used by Nature, but who can see it these days and not think of the PBS series?  Who can see it and not think of the grandeur of nature?   This photo is another from Fotolia. Get one for yourself!

A website that uses xml to diagram concepts: Mind Map Software.  Could this be done without a knowledge of memes?  How close to a mental frame do its maps get?  How useful a teaching tool is the concept map?  What about a flowchart?

Books on Memes

Books on memes are available everywhere.  Try these resources. 

 

Meme Enthusiasts

Memes are themes in essays on science fiction and poetry, photography and graphics throughout my sites.

Memes as themes can be seen at my Ning networks, CafePress estore, blogs and other sites. There are journals on memes at Visit to join in the fun.

And that is just a start. There are more essays to come.

What is a Meme?

The next page defines the word and links to some journal articles. The More button will take you there.

 

Essay by Valerie Coskrey ©2009

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1/15/09 modified 9/22/09