I have this great desire to experience everything (this is how I've framed it anyways). But what does that mean. That's it exactly! Meaning. I'm searching constantly for meaning. "In what context?" you ask. And my answer would be every context. The ways and lessons of life can be found within any subject if enough time and effort is spent in conflict with it. I don't necessarily mean conflict with the general connotations that we would assign to it. I mean it more in the sense of every situation is a conflict in which we attempt to discover how this conflict can be applied to ourselves. And so in any and every subject and situation we experience this conflict of attempting to derive meaning. There it is again. That word; meaning.
An example of this very concept that I'm constantly tackling is in my childhood as I assume it is in several others' as well. It starts with a word. Let's stick with meaning. As a child you say it without really thinking about what that word, separated from the context you are saying it in, means on its own. But then it catches your attention. Boom! Your mind is now on that topic. Meaning. And you say it again, "Meaning." And again, "Meaning." And over and over again you say this word the entire time that your brain is further attempting to interpret what that word means to you. Until all of a sudden you reach a point in the speech of this word that you decide, "Screw saying it! I'm gonna write it." And you write it. Again and again you write it with yet another process of full thought going into interpreting this word and its usefulness to you. And then you try something even further and you say it to someone else to see what they think about your process of interpreting that word or even to see what their own process of interpreting that word is. Now most children (including myself) would not have gone much further beyond the 'saying it' step, but the important thing is is that in reproducing this thought over and over again in a variety of ways it is stripped of all meaning while at the same time it holds all meaning. Everything in Nothing. Is this starting to ring a bell for anybody?
So what does this mean (God Damnit I can't stop using that word)? What does the exploration of one word mean? I'm sure some of you have heard of the term 'multiple intelligences'. Meaning that different people across the world and in individual communities have a variety of ways in which we learn and produce our knowledge. But the truth of the matter is is that each and every one of us holds the potential to have all of these different 'multiple intelligences'. It is only that our social, societal, and cultural backdrops have set up the possibility of our own 'intelligence' to likely be that which has been organically selected by groups of people that influence us as the correct type of 'intelligence'.
Yet again we reach the conflict. My yearning for the learning (I dare you to try not laughing out loud at that) of all meaning is deep set into my desire to understand the full picture. This analogy of a picture just doesn't quite do it but it's all I've got at the moment. The picture is existence; humans, life, earth, solar system, galaxies, the universe, the brain, literature, everything. Only, the picture that I see from the moment I am born is completely dark; there's nothing there. And as I grow the picture begins to be filled with light, but it's spotty. There are areas on the film of the picture that are clear and others that remain to be dark. In fact the large majority of it remains to be dark as I continue to grow and discover and to fill in the darkness of this picture. And I've never reached the edges of this picture. But I search and I search for ways to make this picture that I know is there in entirety to become clear in all areas. Everything I could then see and my existence would be complete. I would as I have said, experienced everything. But (oh the dreadful but) I know this to be impossible with the current evolutionary nature of Homo Sapiens (did you know that this term means 'knowing or wise man'?). There is no capacity despite Frederick Turner's claim to truly hold all of this information and to still function. Hell Dr. Sexson mentioned that in class. But does that mean that I should stop my quest to know and experience everything? No. What it means instead is that I find a new way to approach it. Ah the human is crafty indeed. If s/he cannot find the answer to their question s/he begins the search again in a new way. This is what I was getting at up above with 'multiple intelligences'. But in conclusion why on earth would I search for the answers when I don't even know the questions that I am asking as I proved in class with my inability to phrase my question to Nick? This is interesting. Interesting indeed.
# of times I used 'meaning' - 22 out of 870
Good Night
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