The Semblance of Meaning

by Tom Steck

Life looks like it means something. As soon as we are aware, we are confronted with the inherent irony that life looks like it means something without telling us what it means. Life does not explain life. We are born, we occupy our time with distractions, and we die. There are no absolute answers provided within these constraints. Great thinkers have given us great suggestions, but mortal man is uninformed of who he is or why he is. He wants to know the meaning of his existence.

The simplest, most basic things imply meaning. The passing of seasons implies some deeper truth. It implies the passage of time, the inevitability of change, the cyclic nature of life, and the necessity of death for renewal. But does it really? Is it just what it is? Does nature mean to imply anything at all? Either the meaning is implied by the power of our own perception, or there is a universal language being spoken to all of us, where there is meaning independent of our perceptions.

The power of man's perception cannot be underestimated. Every experience is subject to meaning and that meaning is as important as the thing itself. The individual has more power than he knows to define the meanings of things. Circumstances do not define a man, a man defines his circumstances. It is a godlike power to claim failures as stepping stones, and obstacles as challenges. The meanings that he gives to events and relationships define him as a person. He, in fact, defines himself.

It is a truth that the voice of a man's soul is independent of circumstances. How he sees himself and his world is his choice. There is always hope, because hope is simply the perception of hope.

But hope is complicated by its unspoken appeal to some universal justice, some balancing of the Fates. There is an element faith. Faith is claiming an absolute truth without evidence. Faith is imposition of a system of meaning. Hope is merely the hope of meaning.

The meanings that a man assigns the world determine the quality of his life. They encompass his value system, his goals, his relationships, and his very soul.

Is there a universal meaning of things, that are outside the human perception? If so, what defines the meaning in the universe? If the world was unihabited by man, and was destroyed by a meteor, would it mean anything?

There are moments that seem like they mean something outside ourselves. When a symbolic number appears independent of any prompting. When you meet someone you were thinking about earlier that day. Does it mean something because it means something to you, or is it the nature of the universe whispering that there is meaning, and you need to know it?

Causality seems to hint at meaning. For every experience there is a causality. In general terms, if you are bad, bad things tend to happen to you. If you are good, good things tend to happen to you. All of life is spent negotiating fate to maximize the good and minimize the bad. We try to draw conclusions from its infinite causalities to find the formula that will bring us success or pleasure. We dissect events to find a principle or a rule to live by, to repeat or avoid. We decide whether events are random, or a divine guide.

Nature seems to imply meaning. A simple landscape, a hill and a tree, do not seem simply decorative or incidental. They are signposts in a language obscured from us. They are trying to say something to us. They mean something. Even more profound symbols seem to scream meaning: the ocean, the stars, the animals, the balance, the design, the fact that a seed will grow a tree, that a birth is the result of sex. ... they seem to represent some greater truth, or many truths. That man is tiny. That there is beauty and grace in celestial spheres. That there is chaos. But these truths are the result of man's perception. So we begin see to the inherent problem with finding meaning outside of oneself, which is an objective absolute truth. If you are making the statement, the statement is inherently suspect. The closest we can get to absolute meaning is to mutually agree, or to have a universal perception. But it is curious that we have, that we do agree that life, and its contents, mean something.

The soul is inevitably driven to the questions of purpose and the desperate search for meaning. When there is a birth or a death, our very nature knows that it means something. Health seems to imply something. Illness seems to imply something. In suffering and in struggle, the question is paramount, does life justify life?

The search for meaning is the search for meaning outside of oneself. That search is in perpetual conflict because all meaning is assigned by oneself, in direct opposition to any absolute objectivity. Meaning is subjective. The search for meaning is the subjective search for an objective absolute.

But it doesn't seem that way. It seems that there is some universal absolute whispering to us truths that will help us understand ourselves, our relationships, and our world.
At least, that is my perception.