{"id":33781,"date":"2021-03-26T23:20:59","date_gmt":"2021-03-27T04:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=33781"},"modified":"2021-03-26T23:20:59","modified_gmt":"2021-03-27T04:20:59","slug":"briefly-it-seems-that-crazy-folks-dont-quite-understand-metaphors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=33781","title":{"rendered":"Briefly: It seems that crazy folks don\u2019t quite understand metaphors"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I get a lot of email from readers. Some of it is fascinating and useful. Some of it is full of confessions that people want to share with a stranger. Some people write to ask advice. What\u2019s really surprising, though, is the small percentage that seems to come from mentally unbalanced people. When I started using the metaphor about being an alien \u2014 the tagline at the top of each page here \u2014 it never occurred to me that I\u2019d start hearing from people who took it seriously. But every few months, I get a strange email \u2014 such as the one above from a few months back \u2014 from someone who seems to think I\u2019m claiming to be an actual alien. The first time it happened, I laughed. By the time it became a semi-regular thing, I was simply appalled. For the record, I can provide no proof that I\u2019m an alien, because … well … it\u2019s just a metaphor. I do feel like an alien among human beings, but as far as I know, I\u2019m just as earthbound as you are. It\u2019s just a metaphor. Honest. Or at least, that\u2019s what my lizard-beast overlords told me to say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I get a lot of email from readers. Some of it is fascinating and useful. Some of it is full of confessions that people want to share with a stranger. Some people write to ask advice. What\u2019s really surprising, though, is the small percentage that seems to come from mentally unbalanced people. When I started Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[556],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-briefly","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-8MR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33781"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33786,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33781\/revisions\/33786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}