The Meaning of Meaning

Meaning is connection, context – how things are connected, what they’re connected to; the quantity, quality, and character of those connections.

Sounds or written symbols are words insofar as they connect to something recognizable. My son’s first word was something like “umna,” which had a very specific meaning – airplane – he never used it in any other context. Some words, like “umna” for my son and me, have a limited population. Other words connect to something that is in turn only recognized by a limited number of people. “Soul,” for example, has little meaning for atheists because the “thing” to which it connects is not something they experience. Similarly people with a strong practical bent might not recognize much meaning in a phrase like “happy car,” whereas someone else might think of a car that makes people happy, or a small cute car that makes you laugh, or even a car that has few mechanical problems because the car feels good about itself.

Words have both public and personal meanings because meaning has a historical aspect. In its public meaning, “dog” connects to any member of Canis lupis familiaris, a mammal with which most of us are familiar (as the Latin name implies). However for someone who was bitten by a dog, especially as a child, the personal meaning of “dog” might include danger, darkness, blood and fear; the connections are very different from “man’s best friend.”

Symbols, of which words are one example, can have very powerful meanings – they are strongly and broadly connected to “things” which in turn are also broadly and strongly connected. Take a national flag, for example – not only does it “represent” (symbolize, mean) the nation, for many people it “becomes” the nation; the connection is so powerful for them that they cannot separate the symbol from the “thing” it represents.

This can be true on a personal basis also. People can become so attached (connected) to their possessions, that their possessions become a symbol for themselves; in their minds the thing becomes the person. Take someone who invests himself in his car – his car is connected to his freedom of movement, of escape, of pride, of accomplishment, of his self-hood. In that circumstance, an attack on his car – someone “keys” his car when it was parked inappropriately – feels like an attack on himself. The “keying” might trigger a rage reaction as if he himself had been cut with a knife.

As you can see, a sense of personal meaning is our experience of personal connection, just as it is with words and symbols. How are you connected – to your family, to your community, to your work or creativity, to your world, or even to your possessions? Meaning and value are closely related. If your connection to the world passes through your creative output and you experience a creative block, or if you feel primarily connected to and through your children, and they move away, watch out for depression caused by a sense of meaninglessness and questioning your self-worth. “Who am I if I can’t create, or work, or get together with my family, or whatever?”

I have read that in tribal cultures banishment was an effective punishment possibly equivalent to death. Not only is this a testament to the critical importance of cooperative effort in human survival (we should take a lesson from this), but it also speaks to the ancient, maybe even genetic importance of connection and meaning in our lives. If you are meaningful through your role (connection) within your community, and become cut off from that community, you have essentially been erased and rendered meaningless.

From my cursory reading, much of philosophy hinges on the question, “Who am I?;” or to paraphrase, “What do I mean?” Religious philosophies point to a connection with the divine. Non-religious philosophies may also point to an experience of spiritual connection, or a logically-derived connection to some abstract concept like Justice or Balance or Beauty – we are meaningful in the way that we connect to these concepts. At the other extreme, from their core feeling of disconnection, some Existentialists have come to an opposite conclusion, “I don't mean anything.” Not “I think therefore I am;” but “I exist, and not only do I have no idea why, but ‘why?’ is a meaningless question because ‘why’ cannot connect to anything real.” Just as with words and symbols, we feel meaningful to the extent that we feel connected, and meaningless when we feel disconnected.

“Who am I?” is also a Zen koan – a non-logical puzzle that can aid on the path to enlightenment. The process for this puzzle is to ask yourself “Who am I?” on successive days or weeks. Each time recognize that your answer is limited, that however you defined yourself could be taken away, so it isn’t your true meaning (your children could move away, you could be banished from your tribe, fired from your job, or experience writer’s block). At some point, you will no longer be able to come up with an answer and hopefully your mind will give up and go silent. (If your mind doesn’t stop, and you can’t come up with another answer, you might be a candidate for Existentialism.) From that silence, a new answer will emerge which is likely to be unexpected, simple, and feel more true than anything before. Traditionally, you would need a Zen master to judge whether the answer has truly emerged from the silence or is simply another mental construct.

As is true for other blocks to joy, focusing on one connection or one set of connections to the exclusion of others can be seen as the kind of block I call ‘blinders.’ Like horses’ blinders, intense focus on something that in turn is limited, like identifying yourself with your car, job, family, or nation, limits your ability to see other connections. The “who am I?” koan points to a way to remove these blinders and see deeper into your connections: Recognize that your self-definition is likely to be more limited than necessary, silence your mind through meditation (of any kind), let go of all previous definitions, and allow the silence to speak. This way lies joy, connection and meaning.