9th
Meaning is what you make of it
When I hear these question asked, they often give me pause to reflect.
What does that mean?
Why did that happen?
Why did you do that?
My own conclusion has been that meaning is a product of our sentient human condition and it is the biggest contributor to defining our experiences. The question “Why?” has significant consequences and at its core is asking for an answer that provides meaning.
Meaning is one of the few things that is completely intangible but absolutely necessary to function day to day. I believe that meaning can be applied too liberally, meaning is a necessity to live day to day. We have to put meaning behind the traffic signals, mathematical and grammatical symbols and common day to day knowledge. Those are the things that bind the factual and functional. The personal things that we apply meaning can are windows into who we are and how we perceive the world. Personal meanings are comprised from something as simple as a glance from a stranger in passing to complex far reaching events like major catastrophes.
From the examples above, while day-to-day meaning is necessary to communicate and to function as a society, the second is arguably a lens that shades our perceptions. These lenses come from any outside influence; family and friends, politics, religion, or media.
There is something therapuetic when we take the time to ask ourselves what does this mean? If something tragic happens or major changes shock us, grasping for meaning can give us a moment of cognitive clarity to look backwards and forwards and give the situation a judgement to settle in our minds.
What is fascinating is that people rarely come to the same conclusion when asked why. “Why” is a translation task, a higher operating though pattern that relys not on formulas or rote fact, but on experience, desires, opinions and environment. For this reason I found that meaning is better to be avoided when dealing when personal issues. Asking why in events that it does not makes sense is a waste of energy and can cause erroneous assumptions.
There are people who live by the heart and ideally say “Everything happens for a reason.” The people I have met who perscribe to this epitaph are often religious, feeling people. To them, perhaps God is the meaning behind all things. That there is nothing that binds the varied events of time together but God’s grand scheme. But does it follow that all happenings must also make sense and a meaning is meant to be found? I think this is a personal question for every person to answer on their own merit.
Meaning is our reconciliation between the subjective world and the objective reality. Objective reality is not sorry and the subjective world is not penitent. Choose your side and be ready to defend. You can believe that meaning is of all things or you can choose to see meaning and then let it go. And if something happens that you cannot explain, you can choose to not give it meaning. If you choose to give it meaning, do not be afraid of it being right or wrong. The meaning you give to something is personal. If someone asks what does it mean, just take it as a rhetorical question.
