The meaning of meaning

Humans are the only living beings that have been dealt the power to put their existence into question. Notice that I use the word power here, even when all around us, we have people wonder with joyless anxiety and pensiveness, "What is the meaning of life?"

It is a power because this ability is what drives us by means other than the need for food and sex and asking such a sweeping question is illogical and could be downright dangerous (see comic)

Cue sentience: The ability to feel, perceive, experience and hence respond subjectively. Just like all girls may not like Dylan, all people may not hold the same meaning for life. Meaning is subjective.

Meaning is not an esoteric and serendipitous realization. The way I see it, it is a carefully formulated algorithm that helps your decision making machine (brain) allocate resources (time, effort) to tasks. Then why is it that so many people skip through life with blissful ignorance, or worse yet, trudge through life with the woeful realization that meaning is elusive? Because it is not. Meaning is not found, it is created. Meaning is not discovered, it is invented.

To know how to create meaning in our lives we must know what the word 'meaning' really means. We need to be able to distill it down to the core 4 or 5 ideas that holistically and mutually exclusively define it. I find myself looking at the dictionary for the meaning of meaning (the title of this article) and to my utter disbelief and a hint of guilt (that I had not done this exercise before), I found that the key to finding meaning is all there in the definition of meaning (see image)

I will, from this definition, take a few key words which I identify as the core concepts of meaning and attempt to explain them one at a time. I have taken care to keep them as mutually exclusive as possible and have also taken the liberty to group similar words together:

1. Intention- 'Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything'. These were the words of author Napoleon Hill. A person will get only something that he/she truly wants. If a person does not really desire something, then no matter how hard they try to get it, they will not get it. Even if they succeed in accomplishing the task that they had set out to achieve, they will not find true meaning in success. Meaning is wanting.
2. Significance- Your should always prioritize the importance of something over everything else (urgency, pleasure). Living with meaning is knowing that something that you do will have a profound and positive effect on you, your family, your community, the society and the world. Allocating mental resources to unimportant things on a frequent basis is like getting on the fast lane to an unfulfilled life. Meaning is doing the most important things.
3. Sense/Drift/Gist/Implication- They say an image speaks a thousand words. Meaning is supposed to be that image. It is a vivid description of the person you will be and the things that you will accomplish in the future. It is a summary of how you want your life to pan out. It is having the endgame in mind while making decisions in the present. Meaning is an image of the future.
4. Definition/Explanation/Elucidation/Explication- The US president Dwight Eisenhower once said 'In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable'. By this he meant that war, not unlike life, is dynamic and constantly changing. Because of this reason, plans that you had made might become obsolete. Hence, your planning also should be dynamic, with detailed contingency plans and alternate options. Meaning is having a detailed plan.
5. Interpretation/Denotation- All people who lead meaningful lives have an inexplicable quality of being able to inspire others to find their own path. Spending some time with people who believe their work to be important helps you either appreciate what you are already doing or nudges you on the path towards something that you would rather be doing. While creating meaning one should strive to be able to inspire people towards a more meaningful and purposeful life. Meaning should inspire.

We all have it in us to create meaning in our lives and the beauty of it is that it is unique to each one of us. Now that we have thoroughly understood the meaning of meaning, lets all take one step (or rather 5 steps) towards imbuing meaning in our lives.

Stay purposeful.