All thought is metaphor. The map is not the territory. Every verbal map we make is metaphor, but existence is not words, it is not mathematical equations, the universe is much bigger and more complicated than any verbal map we can make of it. The map is not the territory. The words that describe the map are not the territory, are even further from the territory, so the map is a generalization that doesn’t fit any particular territory. What I perceive is not out there, it’s just what I perceive.