There is meaning in everything, here and now. Intrinsic meaning. Not far-away meaning, not future meaning. There may also be far-away or near-at-hand or future meaning, but this is about the meaning where we are now, wherever and however we find ourselves.
So often we think that meaning is about future results. There is a lot of confusion about the difference between purpose and meaning. Purpose is a utility, a use—the pencil has a purpose to write, the doctor has a purpose to promote health and prevent, alleviate, and cure disease. The sentient pencil 😊 or the sentient doctor 😉 may find meaning within that purpose. But the two are not the same.
And “meaning” here, for this purpose, is not a definition. It is not that the word “pencil” means a certain type of writing instrument, or that “doctor” means a certain type of health professional. It involves an approach to addressing or investigating the question, What is really going on here? In a sense, meaning is found—or more properly, recognized—through a process of excavation and discovery.
Our sense of meaning is felt as a response. A felt depth, a felt profundity of being. In some ways we could say it is a place, though it is not geographic, but it can be felt as a place. And at the most piercing place, the distinction between our subjective response and what we perceive as the object of that response disappears. Then there’s no describer, no description and nothing to describe.
The natural question is, If there is meaning in everything, right here where I sit, why don’t I feel it? Doing the dishes, doing my job, grocery shopping? Whenever, wherever, however—regardless of mood or circumstance? If I what I want is to feel and know that intrinsic meaning, what then?
Well, that’s what this website is about. Diving deeper, seeing for ourselves, and developing vision and understanding so that the actuality of meaning can more and more permeate our actual experience and be part of our day-to-day lives. Finding the suchness of things: that which is within, beneath, and beyond words, objects, feelings and ideas. Right where we are.
The language of birds is very ancient, and like other ancient modes of speech, very elliptical; little is said, but much is meant and understood.
~ Gilbert White
from Letter XLIII, Selborne, 9 September 1778
To love is to undress our names.
~ Octavio Paz
