The best explanation I ever had was, "It is just a type class." In other words, don't worry about some deep metaphor. A Monad will have a type constructor, bind

The best explanation I ever had was, "It is just a type class." In other words, don't worry about some deep metaphor. A Monad will have a type constructor, bind and the badly named return. There are laws that say how they'll work. The intuitions can come later.