I can create and destroy meaning as I see fit.
a very long discourse on why your world does, in fact, revolve around you
Dearest readers (and with bias, my favorite slice of population on the internet),
I hope this article finds you well. I sat in my airplane seat, intending to write a shorter morning coffee crumbs piece by the time the plane landed, but instead caught myself in a flow state, writing endlessly about one of the most simple yet profound realizations I’ve had lately.
It’s going to be a longer article than usual, only because my brain was in a state of exhilaration and excitement - and I hope that translates in the writing, that you enjoy, and that it leaves you with something to think about.
I was listening to this podcast a few days ago when I heard a line that really stuck with me:
I can create and destroy meaning as I see fit.
I began to really meditate over this idea that nothing truly, really, actually matters in this world, in the larger, grander perspective of the universe. And while it may feel abstract or even uncomfortable, this idea includes us and our existences as well.
My experiences, joys, and problems are strictly mine, with sometimes a substantial spillover impact upon some people in my circle, a smaller extension of conversation for others in my circle, but with no real relevance to the rest of the world.
Think about the last time you interacted with a woman who recently gave birth. Her pregnancy, her labor, her joy delivering the child, her ups and downs in her physical and emotional journey is all something only she will ever feel - no matter how much is shared. And even when she experiences one of the most incredible, magical moments of the human experience - giving birth to another conscious being - that moment is truly just hers. For her closest family and friends, a considerable chunk of her joy and pain through the experience is felt. For slightly more distant people who care, a ‘congratulations!’ message, flowers are sent, and hearts are left feeling fuzzy and warm for a few minutes, hours, or days - but then, you move along with your life.
To put it simply, the experience is felt to every degree by the one having it, and dissipates in importance for those further in connection from them. Whether this is a birthday, a death, a breakup, a special joy of meeting your forever partner or your childhood idol, a diagnosis, or doing something that feels larger than their wildest dreams for that individual like getting signed to a music label or landing the job of their dreams, nobody but the individual feels the full extent of this experience. And as you move further and further away from this person’s circle, that thing creating the joy or suffering for that person, truly does not matter.
In the grandest scheme of things, nothing in the universe shifts if you experience happiness or sadness. And when you let that idea extend out, you realize that nothing in the universe also shifts when you’re born into this world and when you leave. Life goes on.
It’s easy to read all this and assume that this is purely a nihilist perspective.
That nothing matters in this world. But it matters to you. The duality is important.
Because once we understand that nothing really matters in this world, but it matters to you in the way that you ascribe meaning to it, there is so much power we reclaim in our experiences.
Knowing that you have the power to remove or add meaning to something or someone allows you to feel more in control, rather than letting this thing destroy you or feed your ego.
It’s really just a thing. A thing the universe does not actually depend on or care about.
It’s just a thing. But it’s a thing that you attached some meaning to.
So if you could attach some meaning to it in a previous moment in your life, you can also always re-attach a new meaning to it considering new information or circumstances. Only if you allow yourself to feel the experience, instead of letting the thing itself consume you.
Maybe you didn’t land your dream job. Instead of letting this thing dictate your identity, you allow yourself to understand why you’re feeling this thing so hard. You dig deeper, you re-strategize, you keep going.
It’s actually not about deflecting or reducing your feelings.
It’s more so about feeling all the feelings, but remembering that we’re the only ones marking this thing with these feelings - whether it’s positive or negative. And when you allow yourself to feel all the feelings while also remembering that it’s only us tacking importance to those things, you can separate meaning from reality.
And when you separate meaning from reality, you see reality for what it is.
Knowing that we have the power to create or destroy special meaning towards the reality we are experiencing allows us to be in control no matter what the wind hits you with. It’s the ultimate realization that you can prescribe new meaning to things if that’s what you’d want for yourself - given time to feel the feelings and understand why your heart prescribed meaning in the first place.
But really what it’s done for me in the last few days of digesting this philosophy is being able to practice more empathy, kindness, and forgiveness.
It’s made me really think about this offshoot philosophy - at the risk of sounding dramatic - that we’re all really alone in this world. And contrary to making me feel cynical about life, it’s been a facet of reality that has allowed me to understand emotions and people more, and even feel comfort in this understanding.
Think about it like this: if there is a thing that I prescribed meaning to, I cannot expect anyone else but myself to prescribe the same exact meaning to the same exact thing to know what I am feeling.
If I’m experiencing the loss or death of a friend, my family or friends may be able to empathize more strongly and with more fragility in the first few days of the aftermath. But as weeks go on by, it’s easy for even your closest ones to slowly forget that this thing has continued to affect you and your demeanor. Maybe you snap at them or are more reclusive, but they no longer brush off your actions for they neither no longer prescribe the same meaning towards the thing that happened that you do nor are they able to empathize with your reactions any longer for they also are living their own lives with their own sets of experiences, joys, and pains.
Instead of continuing to ask for grace from them, or feel misunderstood or alone that your loved ones no longer check in on you or seem to excuse you, maybe you remember again the idea that we’re all just alone.
It’s not a question of why can’t you understand me? don’t you see I’m sad? don’t you see I’m stressed? It’s now an affirmation that people around you actually care about you so much to have given you the grace and understand they did. And maybe now, it’s time to find that strength from within to keep moving on.
Because the reality is: the thing. does. not. matter. to. anyone. but. yourself.
So no matter how much you want someone else to get it, they won’t. Not because they don’t care, but because this isn’t a thing they attached the kind of meaning you did towards it. No one felt every fragment of your feelings, expect yourself.
And the reality is, no matter how selfless or considerate you think you are, you do the same thing to others. Your partner, your parents, your siblings, your kids, your closest friends all have things they attach special meaning to that you won’t ever feel the exact same towards. So you too will maybe not celebrate someone to the extent they want to be celebrated, or you too will not remember that someone is still grieving something or someone months later.
And that is just the experience of being human. To be living our very own, distinctly individual, independent lives.
Sometimes I think about how I’m the only one existing in my reality. It’s just me in my room with my own thoughts and feelings and anxieties. When my mom enters my room or when my friend texts me, they briefly enter my realm of reality, and then they disappear again. They only exist as ideas and imaginations in my thoughts, but nothing outside of that. So, when this is the case, how do I expect anyone to know the extent to which I place meaning towards the things I attribute as my struggles, my wins, my dreams, my truths, and everything else in between?
The world does not revolve around you, as the popular quote goes.
But your world revolves around you.
And everyone’s world revolves around themselves.
But no one else’s world - and the world itself - revolves around you.
Hold that so close to your heart, and you begin to find more gratitude in the moments when people do give you love or grace, for they’re choosing to hold you closer in their own worlds and experiences.
It’s when our worlds collide that we have our most intricate, intimate, beautiful, and sometimes random and fleeting moments of human connection.
A romantic myself, I lean into that notion deeply to strengthen my relationships with family, friends, loved ones, and strangers alike. But in that, sometimes I lose myself in expecting everyone to feel the same way I feel about the things I attach meaning to, or even in expecting people to give me the same type of empathy I give them.
But that’s how and why this newly indoctrinated philosophy of thought has been incredibly powerful and revolutionary for me.
To remember that we’re all living our own lives, giving meaning to things that inherently have no meaning.
And in moments where things have shifted, or meaning to things that have happened needs to be shifted, remembering two fundamental truths has helped me find more grounding and empathy:
You hold the ultimate power to remove or add meaning to things that happen to you. Allow yourself to feel what you’re feeling to really arrive at the ability to separate meaning from reality, to then prescribe new meaning to it.
You attach meaning to things in an uniquely coded way that no one else attaches the same exact meaning to. This means that when things shift, instead of expecting others to view the impact of the thing itself in the same way, in a conversely intuitive manner, try finding more moments of grace and compassion for the love that you do receive at all. For people are choosing to collide their world with you to some degree by nothing but their deliberate and intentional choice to do so.
While this is just the surface of something I’ve only just begin to feel and be able to conceptualize in the form of words, I can already see how it can empower me to see things for what they are, to find more grounding in what is and what is not in moments of joy and disappointment, remember that not just life but feelings too are fleeting, and to radically find more gratitude towards my loved ones.
I imagine I will be distilling this idea further or in other newly emerged thoughts in future blog posts, but I hope this one left you with something to think about.
And if you made it this far, thank you for sticking with me, and for choosing to let my exposition of thoughts occupy your world for a few minutes. I would love to hear any thoughts you may have, or if there was anything that resonated more intimately or not with you.
With love and a freshly baked realization that we’re all capable of creating and destroying meaning to things that exist in our own individual worlds,
sow <3
yay! very nicely said 💛
“ That nothing matters in this world. But it matters to you. The duality is important”
Loved this line. Two things can be true at the same time!