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What good is meaning?
Meaning has been on my mind a lot lately. I know that’s kind of an abstract thing to sit around thinking about, but hey - that’s the kind of guy I am (today). In particular, I’ve been sort of asking: what’s the point?
For a really long time, I’ve been extremely obsessed with decoding the secret meanings behind things. Through things like conspiracy theory, the occult, mythology, psychology, philosophy, media literacy, cultural theory and more, I’ve been on this long and desperate search to uncover the actual “True” meanings and connections between any and everything. Doing so has been extremely productive for me, inspiring both a lot of creative energy and personal growth. But with that growth lately has come a lessening of interest in worrying about meanings and interpretations and all the rest. And I’m curious if anyone else has reached this point, and what comes after it?
The thing I’m starting to realize is that the benefit of the type of searching that I’m doing (whatever you want to call it) is not that you get smarter or better at decoding meanings, or anything like that. The benefit is in what happens to you along the way while you’re not paying attention. While you’re busy trying to figure out if Jesus and Mary Magdalene were shagging, or if the Nephilim and/or Annunaki populated the Earth from outer space, changes are happening that you’re not noticing. It seems like, in a sense, these other things serve as puzzles. They are big tangled thorny nasty knots for you to occupy a certain part of your mind that needs occupying while the real work is allowed to go on way way beneath the surface in areas that won’t manifest themselves fully for months or years after you’ve given up on trying to decipher the secret Masonic layout of Washington, DC.
In fact, the comments to a recent post on Freemasonry helped kickstart this latest realization. (That combined with the part in I Heart Huckabees where she keeps telling him that his coincidences are meaningless.) Though I’m not a Mason or a member of another occult-initiatory tradition, it seems to me like the stages and “secrets” that we hear about in these operate in much the same way as described above. In those comments, Andrew wrote: “I’ve read all the very well published masonic ’secrets’ and the real secrets is what you undergo in the process of change.” To which Jennifer (both of whom have initiatory experience) also added:
That’s the trick of it. Everyone wants a mystical or paranormal experience, a message from god, etc. The real trick is the transformation one undergoes while looking for it…that’s exactly why Freemasonry throws up symbols and allegories rather than just handing you a piece of paper that says “Be good to people, be responsible, clean up after yourself, and love your family.” People need help figuring out why.
For that same reason, I’m wondering if this realization of outward meaning being less important than inward experience will even be of use to other people who are not at the same stage of the game as me. And I don’t mean to say that I’m especially advanced spiritually, but simply that I recognize that everybody goes through these challenges in different ways and at different speeds. What’s good for the goose may not be good for the gander. I know that for me going through a very intense stage of “But what does it all MEAN?” was extraordinarily important for me. And I don’t want to put the brakes on anybody who is still finding value with that. But I do want to hear from people who’ve gone through this same sort of period of crisis, adjustment and redefinition within their own spiritual searching. It’s not something I’ve really ever heard anybody talk about, which I think makes it a great candidate for sharing and reflection.
December 19th, 2005 at 6:25 am
In other words, coming to an emotional acceptance of something that you’ve accepted on an intellectual level? You had the piece of paper (intellectual), but you needed the feeling about why it is important (emotional), ne pas?
December 19th, 2005 at 8:13 am
The late Ben Rowe said something that really resonated with me, about how the verbal part doesn’t matter, but is merely useful to keep your mind occupied while the discarnate teachers work on you on subtler levels. I think that goes for synchronicities too — my experience of them has led me to think of them as behavior modification teachings.
I’m usually not that interested in the meaning of what I or someone else is doing. It’s a thought that can get your mind spinning like a hamster’s exercise wheel. It’s the consequences of the actions that matter more to me.
December 19th, 2005 at 9:59 am
a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.
December 19th, 2005 at 11:21 am
Tim, I’ve gone thru the exact same thing, almost it seems on the same timeline as you BUT I am abot 10 yrs older. I used to pour thru all of those things and getting excited, upset, want to talk to others about it, etc, etc. And in various cycles of interest / disinterest. I have moved on now to a place where I am still searching and interested, but I incorporate a lot more info to sift the new stuff thru. Maybe that’s why you get the breakthru - you have aquired some knowledge and can assimilate it so that you go - hey, it can’t be that both of these “airtight” stories are correct, so maybe neither is correct or none are correct - and then move on.
I am no longer at all interested in whether the Sitchin story is true - I still appreciate the doors of thought it opened for me. I am now totally interested in the “holographic universe” and shamanism, but I look at it all with a more “educated” eye (I hope)
Perhaps we are searching for this stuff because we have questions to answer and then find that the question is good and the answer is too elusive for one lifetime, but the benefits that questioning bring can be applied within your lifetime.
December 19th, 2005 at 1:09 pm
Yeah, I think that “meaning” is just a function of change, and without it, we don’t feel like change is worthwhile, perhaps. So maybe in a scientific-sense, “meaning” evolved in order to satisfy our free-thinking brains; because what kind of brainy animals would want to just breed and survive all day without having a reason? I dunno though, I think it’s deeper than that. That’s not to say that “meaning” isn’t worthwhile, because how crappy would it be to evolutionarily create “meaning” to keep our minds busy and content, only to someday ponder “meaning” itself and shortcircuit the whole process. So, I do think “meaning” is valid and important and does indeed unlock real mysteries (perhaps unknowingly evolving a collective knowledge?), albeit almost as damned abstract as “truth” and “validity” and all of those things.
December 19th, 2005 at 2:49 pm
meaning is what the intellect does. we get impressions through the senses and then we get feelings which make our bodies go. the intellect gets in the way of this process. it becomes another filter. one that can stop action completely.
December 19th, 2005 at 4:08 pm
“means” is a binary relation. It has a subject and object. We cannot say one thing means this or that except in relating it to some object.
If there was something that was its own meaning (as hard as this may be to grasp deep-down), then the subject and object would be the same. This is not quite the same as meaning nothing. It would be, perhaps, a sufficient basis for specifying other, more relative meanings.
“Meaning” is close to “being”.
December 19th, 2005 at 5:09 pm
Prunesquallori, that seems to tie into what Carlos was saying about the whole “maps” or models of reality issue a few posts back. Basically, he was saying that a map of reality is not separate from reality, as there’s no such thing that’s separate. So the map then becomes simply a part of reality which somehow looks like or mimics another part of reality on a smaller scale. In other words, it is a fractal.
The search for meaning as you said is an attempt to relate together smaller segments of the fractal pattern to larger segments with which they are isomorphic. In other words, it’s a matching game: This matches up with that. Flip this over, turn it around and it matches up with this, and so on.
Some part of us seems to believe that we can manipulate the identity of things by playing this matching game over and over. Maybe it’s a form of sympathetic magic almost. Pins the voodoo doll causing pain in a man’s stomach at a distance, etc. Anyway, I was going somewhere with all that, but sort of lost the thread. Maybe somebody else can pick it up. Or maybe as per my original point, it doesn’t really matter…?
December 19th, 2005 at 5:21 pm
Actually, what I was just talking about seems to point back towards representation as being at the crux of consciousness itself, which I talked about a while back
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005...aintings-the-origin-of-consciousness/
But maybe this is all just a red herring - another knot-puzzle to be untangled
December 19th, 2005 at 5:48 pm
And as long as the “I” is there to search for the meaning, the transcendent experience doesn’t really happen. I too have been on an intense quest to really understand what is going on here on planet earth. Learning about the Annunaki and other such things helped me to build a framework or theology that works for me. But the truest experience of consciousness it seems goes beyond the search for meaning. Again, it’s the concept of philosophy versus a transcendent experience of bliss.
December 19th, 2005 at 6:55 pm
It’s like this, for me:
Because I aspire to be a writer, I see my life as one long, unending novel. Every day is another chapter. Sometimes I am writing the script, and other times I am a character being written into existence.
All of this helps me to cope with life.
I am simultaneously interested and disinterested in meaning. I alos stay away from asking “What does it ALL mean?” because there’s no answer to that. I prefer to ask “What does this mean, this thing that stands before me?” And if I take too long trying to find the answer, I move on to the next stationary object in my path.
I don’t need symbols and rituals to conjure meaning. I have my five senses, and they serve me well. I guess that’s why I’m fascinated with secret societies: I can’t help but wonder if it really works for them or if they are just fooling themselves. And since I haven’t gone so far as to apply for membership to a secret society, it is obvious that I think they are fooling themselves. Or maybe some people are aware of their inability to create meaning out of nothing, so they rely on crutches– symbols, spells, rituals, all that crap.
This makes me feel glad to have an imagination.
December 19th, 2005 at 7:04 pm
Hm, thats like what I said a while back about how idolatry might be considered a “failure of imagination”
Anyway, I think what you said about being interested/disinterested in meaning is pretty on target for me as well. In one way I’m fascinated by it, in another I wish I could get away from it altogether and just have things be what they are - which is what I’ve been coming away with from a lot of the David Lynch stuff, as I’ve gone into elsewhere.
December 19th, 2005 at 8:49 pm
You wanted to hear from people who’ve gone through this same sort of period of crisis, adjustment and redefinition within their own spiritual searching. I didn’t address any of that in my last post.
All I care to reveal is that at an early age, I had doubts about the surfaces of my environment. I never felt comfortable in church. Adults seemed to be acting out of self-interest, and not out of concern. I thought I was crazy for thinking certain things.
Then, at age 14, truths about the nature of my environment were finally made accessible to me, and I realized that my “hunches” had been right– church WAS a bunch of baloney; Adults didn’t have a clue as to what they were doing; and maybe I was a little crazy, but only because I dared to give voice to my imagination while others were busy trying to hide theirs.
Knowing that I was “right” did NOTHING for me. Part of me wishes that I’d never found out, but I know that eventually I would’ve flushed the truth out from behind its bush. So I retreated inside of myself and let my imagination take over.
Thankfully, I attended a Magnet school where my brand of imagineering was not frowned upon– it was encouraged.
I guess what I mean to say is: the meaning of everything is whatever you feel in your gut. And even though we all run the risk of sounding like we’re nuts, sometimes it is best to trust your own instincts, because people DO cover up things to spare their own asses, and people DO lie and think they can put one over on an inquisitive kid.
I’m not perfect, but over the years I’ve gotten pretty good at reading people, and thaty more than anything has helped me. Some accuse me of reading too much into my daily interactions with others, but I’m rarely wrong about someone after I’ve spent 15 minutes with them.
December 20th, 2005 at 8:21 pm
It seems, to distill it down, It’s not about where you go, it’s the trip getting there. Reflecting on what you said about Freemasonry, like Christianity, or any belief based organization, it is about the initiatory experience, the being re-born into knowledge. Part of the problem today, is that everyone wants to read about initiatory experiences, but no one goes through them. Simply reading about the 3 (or 32) degrees of Freemasonry will tell you what they do, but do they give you the experience of going through them?
Much of what you talk about is a transition of seeking to knowing. Digesting what you have learned. Your outlook has changed. A beautiful aspect of Freemasonry is the admonishment of forever learning. But not just learning about Freemasonry, but about all the aspects that make Freemasonry what it is.
So as you plateau, perhaps it is a time to reflect, as many others have, to regain the fortitude to continue on the journey of seeking. And perhaps instead of reading about initiation, become initiated, and then experience what it means. The searching is not about the ultimate answer, it is about the looking, the asking of the question.
Freemason Information
Masonic Journal
Freemason Information Discussion Group
December 20th, 2005 at 10:24 pm
Hi Greg, thanks for your thoughts. I especially resonated with what you said here:
I couldn’t agree with you more on that. And one of the next major steps in my life is to figure out what or if initiatory experience will be right for me. I’ve considered Freemasonry and some others, but have not yet found one that I felt ready to commit to. I’m working on a move to another city in the next month though, and am hoping this will provide me with some new opportunities in this area of my life.
December 23rd, 2005 at 1:43 pm
We all have our veils of perception…which is why, I think, that we have so many types of spiritual vehicle I think the symbolism provided by esoteric systems ismore effective because it makes you work for it, whereas in a dogmatic system, one can hit the pitfall of believing one’s spiritual journey is complete by filling certain requirements (ie, ‘accepting Jesus’) and stagnate. (Of course, the dogmatists argue that the structure they provide prevents people from mistepping, or provides a ‘proven’ formula for transformation. (I don’t buy the ‘one size fits all’ theory)
In either case, one has to work for, whether within or outside a particular tradition. Assuming that because you’ve followed a few rules, you’re destined for the rapture is ridiculous. It’s also silly to assume spiritual superiority for rejecting any particular dogma- one isn’t spiritually advanced just because one recognizes that Adam and Eve may be allegorical, for example; it kills me how often cynicism is often passed off as spiritual knowledge.
December 23rd, 2005 at 1:58 pm
That’s a great topic by itself! Maybe I should put together a piece based on that.