How things build themselves : the river metaphor

Gilbert Durand is known his work on the imaginary, and symbolic anthropology.

He sees things evolving like rivers.

Of course, the game is to use this on whatever you want, like fashions, history, art, events, philosophy or literature.

Here are the words he uses :

1. Streaming : currents and fountains, sometimes from distant pasts, resurgences, or born from events.
2. Watersheds : some streams gather, creating frontiers with other streams, some fights can burst.
3. Confluences : a current is reinforced, valued by other streams, which are like helping figures.
4. Names : the river is named, typified, characters (real or imaginary) are linked to it.
5. Banks layout : consolidation (reality, style) happens, come the theoriticians and “second”  founders, thinkers – sometimes with rises and floods : exaggerations.
6. Exhaustion & deltas : meandering causes derivations, divisions, and other rivers cant melt.

 

Where will you use this, and how, and what can it bring to your thinking activity?

Thanks for reading!