Meaning

Dear Me,

“The heron is exactly what the heron is to you in the moment you choose to give it meaning. It will be that meaning until you decide it means something else. That’s how meaning works. It’s a subjective act of interpretation… Meaning, like many crafts, happens in collaboration between maker and materials…The trouble starts when we forget about our participation in the creation of harmony, of meaning. When we remove our agency in meaning-making, we start to think in absolutes. We are our jobs. We are defined by the car we drive. Our objective worth is reflected in the way our parents or our peers treat us. We don’t lend our voices to harmony. We buy our harmonies pre-sung in tidy plastic packages.

I believe our worth is fixed. We are innately worthy. Our meaning? Our identity? Those concepts require our intentional participation and they are mercifully flexible…There are objective facts in the world. Of course there are. But our concept of self, our significance, our sense of whether or not we deserve to take up space in the universe or experience joy and contentment—these are not questions of fact, they are questions of meaning.

-Jarod K. Anderson