Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. “Aesthetic Experience”. pp. 235-236

“From the experientialist perspective, metaphor is a matter of imaginative rationality. It permits an understanding of one kind of experience in terms of another, creating coherences by virtue of imposing gestalts that are structured by natural dimensions of experience. New metaphors are capable of creating new understandings, and therefore, new realities…

But metaphor is not merely a matter of language. It is a matter of conceptual structure. And conceptual structure is not merely a matter of the intellect-it involves all the natural dimensions of our experience, including aspects of our sense experience: color, shape, texture, sound, etc. These dimensions structure not only mundane experiences but aesthetic experiences as well. Each art medium picks out certain dimensions of our experience and excludes others. Artworks provide new ways of structuring our experience in terms of natural dimensions. Works of art provide new experiential gestalts and, therefore, new coherences. From the experientialist point of view, art is, in general, a matter of imaginative rationality and a means of creating new realities.

Aesthetic experience is thus not limited to the official art world. It can occur in any aspect of our everyday lives-whenever we take note of, or create for ourselves, new coherences that are not part of our conventionalized mode of perception or thought.”

I had to show this in full because I was in disbelief when I read this at the end of MWLB, as if this very section was written for my composition interests. This fits snugly alongside English Composition as a Happening by Geoffrey Sirc, particularly his concepts of composition as a plastic every day art, and small t truth centered writings adhering to box logic. My brain absolutely hums as I read texts from which I can pull strings, trails to come back to, bits and pieces to carry away in my pockets. Another ah-ha moment.