orientational metaphors

"GOOD IS UP; BAD IS DOWN" (#60 333)
"good is up gives an up orientation to general well-being, and this orientation is coherent with special cases" (#60 364)
"happy is up is maximally coherent with good is up" (#60 375)
"Not all cultures give the priorities we do to up-down orientation. There are cultures where balance or centrality plays a much more important role than it does in our culture." (#60 463)
"Or consider the nonspatial orientation active-passive. For us ACTIVE IS UP AND PASIIVE IS DOWN in most matters. But there are cultures where passivity is valued more than activity. In general the major orientations up-down, in-out, central-peripheral, active-passive, etc., seem to cut across all cultures, but which concepts are oriented which way and which orientations are most important vary from culture to culture." (#60 464)

front-back orientation

"Moving objects generally receive a front-back orientation so that the front is in the direction of motion (or in the canonical direction of motion, so that a car backing up retains its front)." (#60 787)

TIME IS A MOVING OBJECT metaphor → ...

"time in English is structured in terms of the TIME IS A MOVING OBJECT metaphor, with the future moving toward us" (#60 790)
"The proverb "Time flies" is an instance of the time is a moving object metaphor." (#60 794)
"By virtue of the TIME IS A MOVING OBJECT metaphor, time receives a front-back orientation facing in the direction of motion, just as any moving object would. Thus the future is facing toward us as it moves toward us" (#60 799)
"Since future times are facing toward us, the times following them are further in the future, and all future times follow the present. That is why the weeks to follow are the same as the weeks ahead of us." (#60 808)
"the time is a moving object metaphor, the front-back orientation given to time by virtue of its being a moving object, and the consistent application of words like follow, precede, and face when applied to time on the basis of the metaphor." (#60 811)

ME-FIRST orientation

"Since people typically function in an upright position, see and move frontward, spend most of their time performing actions, and view themselves as being basically good, we have a basis in our experience for viewing ourselves as more UP than DOWN, more FRONT than BACK, more ACTIVE than PASSIVE, more GOOD than BAD. Since we are where we are and exist in the present, we conceive of ourselves as being HERE rather than THERE, and NOW rather than THEN. This determines what Cooper and Ross call the ME-FIRST orientation: UP, FRONT, ACTIVE, GOOD, HERE, and now are all oriented toward the canonical person; DOWN, BACKWARD, PASSIVE, BAD, THERE, and THEN are all oriented away from the canonical person." (#60 2309)