Meaning 101

What is meaning?   

I’ve had more than my fair share of friendly discussions on the topic of “meaning” over the years because I am a firm believer that poetry, at it’s best, must reach for, “the higher place.”  Describing a barn full of animals that is not a metaphor for, let’s say a womb, is just, well, pretty words about a barn full of animals.  I suppose there is some merit and even art in that, but to me at least, that ain’t it.  

Notice also I did not say poetry seeking meaning always succeeds.  Seeking meaning is the true quality that a poem recognizably tries to bring a deeper understanding, insight or edification to the reader. . .and is [in my opinion] absolutely necessary.

I once read a poem about cleaning bathrooms.  I asked the poet what it meant and she said, “It’s about cleaning my bathroom.”  Ok.  Then there was a poem about a boy going to ask a girl to marry him and he trips in a groundhog hole and sprains his ankle, drops his sandwich down the hole for the groundhog to find and eat.  

Ah, yes, here we are. The mythical leg wound in becoming a man and the obligatory offering to an archetypal creature, right?  No.  The poet told me he thought it would be funny if the boy tripped.  (i.e. slap-stick comedy, heck why not a pie in the face too, we are writers after all!)

The question of meaning is a long and complicated one.  We aren’t going to answer this question in a couple hundred word blog or even an evening of drinking refreshments.  [insert your ideas on this here]

What we can do is set the playing field and the goal posts here so we can advance to Meaning 201, 301, and 401 and if we are all very lucky and maybe I get a heck of a lot better, a master class of What is Meaning?  

“To be or not to be,” is one of the most recognizable and meaningful phrases in human history.  These words transcend language, culture, time.  If you are human then you can understand this dire crossroad of life.  Do I want to live?  Do I want to die?  Exist or not.  Does it even matter?  Indeed the thought matters to us all.  Note: it is meaningful because the writer, the character and the reader are human.

Now, imagine a million bots randomly generating phrases and in the trillions of characters of nonsense out pops: [nonsense] “to be or not to be” [nonsense] followed by trillions more nonsense.  [insert trick question alert here] Does this phrase have meaning?   Distracting Hint: They’re the exact same words that Shakespeare wrote. 

The answer is no.   

Those words have no meaning in the exact same way a computer can solve chess, but is not actually playing chess.  A Queen in chess is a game piece and also a powerful metaphor for a human.  It is 9 points and x freedoms-of-movement to a computer.  A variable in a complex but eminently crunchable program—that a human has written to beat a human he or she could never possibly beat at chess.  The bot words “to be or not to be” like the chess game have no referential meaning—coming from a machine. 

So for humans, meaning connects us to our humanity.  Meaning lets me see the inputs to your black box and the outputs from your black box and lets me say—I understand.  

If the input is that barn full of animals over there and all your words say is that there’s a barn full of animals over there. Then as a human you have told me you have eyesight and can see a barn full of animals over there.  Yeah, I see it too.  Well, I guess eyesight comes in handy when driving a car, playing darts and shaving, but. . ..anything else going on inside there you’d like to share? 

We’ve all seen a couple reality TV shows, and, so that’s it, huh?  A barn full of animals over there.  Eating?  Oh, ok, they are eating too---check.  Yes, yes and drinking water, etc. we get the picture. 

I’d have to call that meaningless.

So the second quality of meaning is: it adds to our experience of being human.  It takes us to a higher place, inch by painful or beautiful inch.  You bet it does. Feel it.

TO BE!  FOR WHAT DREAMS MAY COME. . .MUST GIVE US PAUSE!

Like the words relationship, time and blue, meaning is difficult to grasp, but also like these things as a human being and occasional poet or reader of poetry, we know it when we see it. Blue.  

Peace and Meaning to You All,

~ Girard Tournesol