Dear Inner-Calm, Your question is not just simple but noble, deep and concise. But of course it is presented devoid of context. Aside from challenging the universal quantifier 'all'; in which good practice demands that we look for counter-examples i.e. 'are there ever times when content is not metaphorical', my take on this is as follows: "Every word which we use has a meaning to us, which guides us in our use of it. The more common the word, the more associations we have with it, and the more deeply rooted is its meaning. Therefore, when someone gives a definition for a common word in the hopes that we will abide by that definition, it is a foregone conclusion that we will not do so but will instead be guided, largely unconsciously, by what our minds find in their associative stores. I mention this because it is exactly the sort of problem that Euclid created in his Elements, by attempting to give definitions to ordinary common words such as 'point', ''straight line', 'circle' and so forth. How can you define something for which someone has a clear concept?" (Hofstadter, 1979 p. 90) "It's important to understand that the word "imaginary" in imaginary time doesn't refer to imagination: it refers to a very ancient idea in mathematics, namely imaginary numbers, such as the square root of -1." (Kip Thorne in Hawking 1992.) But what Thorne misses is that mathematics is itself within the private domain of imagination. It is comprehensible solely to a specialist trained in its rules, and conducted symbolically in the mind. The glyphs and symbols simply being code that mathematicians use to communicate with one and other. These are of course precisely defined in the ways suggested by Euclid. In this sense 'imaginary time', means what it says. In WITW Carmen and John draw attention to the idea that mathematical definitions, and those of formal logic are derived from the inherent logic in natural language: "We remind the reader that we use the term derivative in two senses: in the historical sense that we are proposing that the first component of the human nervous system developed that has been modeled as finite recursive rule system is the syntax of natural language. The second sense is that formal systems such as logic still retain obvious connections with natural language as do the most fundamental branches of mathematics - arithmetic for example."  (Bostic and Grinder 2001 p 310) This leads me to conclude that whilst not all content IS metaphorical, (unless we are addressing your question from that ultimate Set that includes all other Sets, in which when a violent partner strikes you cruelly, or you find yourself nailed to some other cross it's all an illusion and really you dwell in heaven as an angel), all content is represented in terms of what you have been taught either within your immediate family and community, or within your profession. But those forms are circumscribed by the inherent ways in which language operates in human beings, which is of course defined by neurology, (unless one is examining the question from the level of the Set of all Sets). Or, if you prefer? Content is probably NOT always metaphorical, but where and how you probe will determine what you experience. And almost ALWAYS content is NOT reality in the same way that Euclid's symbols do not fully represent the world as it is. I hope this helps??? Love and blessings, Stephen Bostic, Carmen StClair; and Grinder, John. (2001) Whispering in the Wind. Scotts Valley: J&C; Enterprises Stephen Hawking Ed., with Gene Stone. (1992) A Brief History of Time Reader's Companion. London :Bantam Hofstadter, D. (1979) Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Harmonsdworth: Penguin