The fine art and desperate love of analogy

I have this fault of stepping into an analogy without much in the way of preparation. Someone might ask me a question and a 'get-your-self-out-of-this-one' switch must click in my brain. Inevitably out pops It's a bit like... as a prefix to a completely disparate and seemingly random set of nouns.

Whilst I enjoy letting my thoughts wander in this way, the look of confusion on the face of the questioner sort of dulls my fun.

At some point the use of an analogy borders on, or even ventures into the realm of poetry - it's the fine-tuning that potentially creates beauty.

I have been thinking about this for a while as I was trying to describe to myself the more innate reactions I have to stimulus when exhausted. The more I tried to find appropriate words or phrases the more emotive the language became.

Utter exhaustion became The sublime sickness of exhaustion and so forth.

I have had it a few times whilst on hellishly long flights with multiple transfers that I have gone to autopilot... where my eyes are open but I'm not really home - for want of a better phrase.

At these particular times I react very strongly to stimulus. A very bad inflight movie can reduce me to tears or - more importantly - classical music really works.

It's a bit like .... there you go! ... you are lying across the notes as they are being played - like a thin skin over a moving muscle. Just as the tone lifts and falls as does your breathing. It physically hurts to listen to the cries of a violin and your eyes strain against weakly closed lids. You forget to breath and your tongue becomes heavy in a dry mouth.

This state is euphoric and something I wish I could replicate on demand. As painful as it might be, you do get a feeling of intimacy that is very intense.