Please find this
peculiar treasure trove of metaphors, similes, and stories for those of you who
are curious about personality. I call this “meta-personality.” Meta is a prefix that
means “beyond.” I will define for you the terms metaphor and simile in the following. And do not be afraid of metaphors, whose definition I never
understood in grade or high school.
A user-friendly definition of the word metaphor is available via etymology. Etymology is the study of the history of
words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.
Metaphor is a synthesis (combination) of meta, meaning beyond, and phor,
meaning structure. Just “make” someone into another structure! So, if you say
or write to someone, “You are a fountain of knowledge,” you have turned them
into a fountain! That is an example of a metaphor.
Simile is easier. Just think of “similar.”
If I say, “You are like or similar to a fountain of knowledge,” I have used a
simile to describe you.
This metapersonality adventure began in
the early 1980s when a new patient of mine whose wife had separated from him
asked me to get a copy of The I
Ching or Book of Changes by Wilhelm and Baynes. I acquiesced to
his request and read that Wilhelm translated this seeming 3000 year old Chinese
text of Yin (female) and Yang (male) into German, and Cary Baynes translated
the German into English.
At my patient’s second session, knowing
that I had obtained the text, he cited specific sentences and paragraphs for my
take on them. He said he got these
sentences and paragraphs by means of an oracular readout, which I later understood. I read his cited sentences and
then waited for him.
He told me that the text supported his
belief that he had the right to control his wife; that she had no choice but to
return to him. I was momentarily at a loss for words. Was he serious? Did he
want psychiatric support from me that his wife should act as his subject? As it
turned out, that is exactly what he wanted.
I told him that I did not share his
interpretation. I suggested he look at the text from a psychiatric perspective,
which advised that he treat his wife as an equal. Otherwise I believed his wife
would not return to him. Did he not grasp why she had left him? He steadfastly
disagreed with me. As you can imagine our professional relationship did not
continue.
A few
weeks later I returned to my copy of the I Ching. The I Ching is comprised of three books
in one: Book I – the text; Book II – the material; and Book III – the commentary.
I chose Book I, which my patient had used, to see if I could find any
usefulness in the I Ching. As I glanced at the titles for each of the 64
hexagram-chapters it occurred to me to look up hexagram 18, relating to my date
of birth: 10-18-1933.
The title of hexagram 18
read: “Work on what has been spoiled.” This seemed to accurately describe part of my
personality. Interesting! Was that a coincidence or what? That impelled me to
associate dates of birth of my major players with the I Ching.
My father was born on 9-2-1903. Hexagram 2 and its text is labeled,
“Receptive.” My father always wanted us children and his other major players to
be receptive to his lectures. One of my brothers was born on the 27th. The
hexagram title is, “Corners of the mouth” (providing nourishment). This also
fit. My brother always encouraged people to feel better. And ultimately
intrigued, I discerned that my relatives’ dates of birth also correlated
concretely and abstractly with the hexagrams. I then took this interesting
project to my office. I began silently juxtaposing patients’ dates of birth to
their personalities. And their dates also appeared to resonate. And then I
thought, “Now what?”
Assuming that the day of
birth represented the personality we carry out during the bulk of our hours at
an activity, what could or would the month and the year represent?
My secretary at the time
helped me out with one of the above. Ultimately a formula followed: the month
of our birth is for the first minutes of each new situation; the day is for
carrying out the bulk of hours at an ongoing activity; and the year is for confronting
positive and negative challenges whenever they occurred.
My birth month, October, was
equivalent to the 10th Hexagram labelled “Treading.” It was right on
as to metaphors and similes applicable to me at the start of new
situations. And 33, “Retreat,” for
confronting challenges, left me confused for a time. Did this suggest I would retreat from a
challenge or would I re-treat a challenge? I discovered I did both.
Not long after, a university
professor, who learned of my interest in metapersonality, asked me to lecture
his graduate students on basic elements of psychiatry and also some on meta-personality.
I gladly accepted his request.
I mentioned to the graduate
students that at times patients were reluctant to take a psychotropic
medication. To mitigate this fear I used the phrase, “If the shoe fits wear
it.” In other words if the medication
seemed effective in decreasing the symptom continue to take it. I also spoke of
when a patient might call my office to inform me of imminent suicidality. I
would often verbalize, “I will not let you turn into a pumpkin, I will not let you commit suicide, so you must come to my office immediately."
I realized that the
psychiatric challenge of a patient feeling suicidal lit up my “33”: to get my
patient to “retreat” from being suicidal.
My “10” for the first minutes of this new situation would have them urgently
“tread” to my office or to an emergency department. And my “18” would have me
“Work on what has been spoiled.”
During the break in my
lecture a number of the students looked at my copy of the I Ching or at one or more of the New Age books I had with me. As we resumed, one
of the students raised her hand to tell me something she found in one of the
texts. And she wondered if I knew of her finding? She referred to my date of
birth. She said, “Dr. Paltrow, do you realize that the phraseology you used
before the break fit with the 18th chapter of Inner Child Cards?” “No,” I responded. She then
told the group that the 18th chapter was titled, “Cinderella,” which
related to my expressions of “if the shoe fits” and the “pumpkin.” I was fascinated with this student’s
discovery that the role and or story of Cinderella did describe a facet(s) of
my personality.
If the book you are using does not have
enough chapters for your day of birth (1-31) then consider using the individual
numbers, e.g., chapters 3 and 1 for being born on the 31st. The zero in any birthday (01 for January, or the 10th, 20th, and 30th) can be found using the zero chapter in the Inner Child Cards book.
If the book you are using does not have
the chapter for your year of birth, then consider using the I Ching. Since there are 64 Hexagrams, subtract 64 from any higher year to get the applicable Hexagram. For example, the year 1987 would just focus on the 87. Subtract 64 (total number of hexagrams) from
87 and discover 23. So, the 23rd,
8th, and 7th chapters could all apply to describe modi
operandi for confronting challenge.
Please keep in mind that the metapersonality
I describe above compels us to think of metapersonality as being “logical.” Step
1 is called “Major premise”: one’s belief, finding, opinion, or perspective.
Step 2 is called “Minor premise”: documentation or evidence to support the
major premise. Step 3 of logic is the “Conclusion.”
Yes, this post seems to compel logic when
we discover literal and abstract correlations with our dates of birth. A trove
of metaphors, similes, and stories that seem to describe our personalities
could be seriously contemplated when our situations, settings, and comings and
goings seem to be out of sync.
Here is a list of
the nine new age books I use as reference for metapersonality. You might want
to see if your library has any of these texts. Please start your adventure
slowly, as I did, using whatever book you have as a reference, rather than as a
novel or a book to read from cover to cover.
Enriched knowledge of each other’s personality helps each one of us to
relate more peacefully to ourselves and to each other.
1. Wilhelm, Richard, and Cary F
Baynes. The I Ching or Book of Changes. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1971
2. Murphy, Joseph. Secrets of
the I Ching. New York: Parker, 1973
3. Blum, Ralph H. The Book of
Runes. New York: St. Martin’s press, 1993
4. Blum, Ralph H, and Susan
Loughan. The Healing Runes. New York: St. Martin’s press, 1995
5. Sams, Jamie, and David Carson.
Medicine Cards. New York: St. Martin’s press, 1999
6. Lerner, Isha, and Mark Lerner.
Inner Child Cards. New Mexico: Bear & Company, 1992
7. Sams, Jamie. Sacred Past
Cards. San Francisco: Harper, 1990
8. Sheppard, Susan. The
Phoenix Cards. Vermont: Destiny Books, 1990
9. Carlsberg, Kim, and Darryl
Anka. Contact Cards. New Mexico: Bear & Company, 1996
