Meaning

One often seeks for 'meaning' in myriads of things,

small and big, 'signifcant' and 'trivial' (these two words

also being related to the term, 'meaning').

There are questions, discussions, and even heated debate

over the "Purpose of Life" (as so deviously exploited by a

certain religious figure with some serious financial rewards,

whether intentional or not, and regardless of how he utilized

all that profit), in our hopeless effort to "FIND" some "meaning"

in what we call our lives.

Such quest for meaning in one's life already implies that one

regards the self as deserving of that attention, worthy of the

very thing he or she seeks, i.e. "meaning."

During a recent conversation with my colleague and friend,

which we usually have in a surprsingly casual manner

(surprising because we draw some insightful conclusions,

like finding a gem in the mud, or to be more appropriate -

ash tray), I found myself saying something like the following.

"People always seek for meaning in everything, as if it is

some tangible, self-standing absolute. But we often forget

how meaning is something you "give" to something else

otherwise, well, 'meaning-less'. Meaning itself comes into

'being' when you assign it to an idea, object, people, and

of course, the never-ending subject of the whole discussion

on meaning- one self."

My friend then quoted the well-known sage regent:

"Yeah, even Solomon, the wisest man, said "Meaningless,

meaningless, everything is meaningless. SHIT, it's fucking

all meaningless!"

And I agree. Everything, any thing, those that may exist

without a particular value given to it, is in fact, meaningless.

More abstract "bodies" only find more substantial existence

in "meaning" it self, in its being assigned the particular value

which we call, or at least I address for the purpose of this

bit as "meaning." The idea of "meaning" itself, for instance.

Even yet, the word "meaning" still can exist on its own

as a juxtaposition of alphabets which, well, "mean" nothing

more than curves and vertical lines to someone illiterate,

I suppose.

Every being, object, or invention (whether physical or

abstract) are rather like a vessel which require the contents

to reach its "true", or "full" value. These e-pressions I

am attempting employ turn out to be quite self-explanatory and

obvious, so much so that this babble almost appears

strained and well, "meaningless." To get back to my original

train of thought, let's consider the word, "meaningful", and

"meaningless": quite clearly, assuming that we haven't

realized this obvious, self-explanatory fact already, the words

point to the fact that meaning is something bestowed upon

another. So to be blatantly obvious, things are meaningless

without the meaning given to it. Ergo, everything, in its

natural, still form, is meaningless.

But is it so depressing? Was Solomon just going through

that nervous breakdown every genius seem to go through

before he cuts off his ear or does him self in with a pistol,

drugs, or, I suppose in Solomon's case, the alleged

debauchery accompanied by his idolatery (and a harem

to compare, which leads me to question whether he was

really the wisest man, or just the bad-ass-est P-I-M-P).

No, I do not think so, for one. As mentioned before,

things are meaningless in their natural state as, well,

they are not given the meaning. All we need to do is

bestow meaning on it so it becomes meaning-full. Like filling

an empty glass with milk, wine, or beer. Like a knife,

as my friend pointed out, and how many people use as

an example, although that metaphor does not serve best

in me pointing out (no pun intended) the composition of the

word revealing its true nature.

So this circles back to the premise mentioned quite earlier

on in this barrage of words. Meaning it self, as people

often say they are trying to "find", is not a self-standing,

objective "being (for the lack of a better term without

being redundant and obvious... by using any e-pression

related to, well, "meaning" itself). Rather, it is something

created and that creates, "meaning" in a "meaningless"

object, idea, relationship or whatever it may be, in turn making

it "meaningful". The very process of bestowing a value,

or to be more precise (and yet again, self-explanatory and

redundantly obvious), meaning is created by giving meaning

to something for which many people seem to look for: an

effort to "FIND" meaning, rather than so simply bringing

in to existence what they so longed to discover.

Of course, it may seem like I'm being an ignorant ass

just arguing over symantics and the word usage of "finding

the meaning." Perhaps so, especially considering the

e-pression translate quite literally in Korean, though my

knowledge of other languages are not sufficient to make

the same case for those as well.

My intention behind this lengthy prose, however, is to give

the readers, and myself, some hope in the fact that

meaning (a close relative of concepts such as purpose,

fate, love, faith, and other ideas or beliefs that seem oh so

elusive to the despaired) is not a fleeting butterfly often

out of our reach, but something over which we have command,

just like breathing, eating, or even shitting. Hell, we have

even less command over shitting than our powerful ability

to create meaning.

And in this vein, I'd like to point out that "finding" meaning is

not a process of discovering something that may possible

remain undiscovered, but rather like arranging the elements

of the complete product that already exist in one's mind.

The pieces are always available: you just have to find your

way to putting them together, and often it appears to be a

daunting task, as it may well be, although I previously did

make it sound so simple and easy.

But you know what the beautiful part is? If you fuck up a LEGO

structure, you can always redesign and rebuild it as you learn

better ways to do so. Meaning too, is fluid and malleable, that

you always have the opportunity do refine or completely

redesign something that requires such reconsideration.

Of course, realistically, the task is not always that simple,

as the ramifications already incurred may be severe,

and the fear of such consequences prevent many of us

getting started on the blue print.

I'm generally not an optimistic guy, but I would like to propose

the following. If anything, you can always go at it

brick-by-brick. And I'll leave it at that for today.