The 3Ms of Meaning

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I am often fascinated by the paths we take to our perception of “truth.” For example, I had my hair cut the other day by a young woman whose accent implied that she was from “somewhere else.” I inquired - perhaps politically incorrectly - where she was from. “Ukraine.” she replied. 

Naturally, I asked what she thought of the current brouhaha. “Ah,” she said, “Is all fault of Ukrainian president.” And then launched into a lengthy analogy about what one should do if you saw someone climbing up a ladder into your neighbor’s daughter’s bedroom several times each week. I had no idea what she was talking about, but she had scissors in her hand at the time, and was waving them around my head. So I remained mum. Her insights, it sadly became evident, did not translate to much facility in cutting hair. But I was intrigued with the fervor with which her analogy reflected, to her at least, an obvious path to the “truth” of a complex situation. The more I thought about it, the more I came to consider that, despite the varying way-stations along the route, our path to truth seems to traverse a common countryside. I now think of that path as the 3Ms of meaning. Let me share. 

The first M is “moment.” Meaning has to start somewhere, and I think for us big-brained apes that somewhere is an experiential moment. Something happens to us that is of such import that we stash it away somewhere up in those billions of cells between our ears. Think of it as a still photo. And, like many of the still photos in the dusty photo albums in our closets, or in the “photos” file on our phone, tablet or computer, that may well be the end of it. But occasionally something - a conversation, a movie, a similar instance, jogs the grey matter, and out pops that photo, and that leads us to the second M: Memory. 

Memory is unique. My wife can remember, it seems to me, every meal she has ever eaten, who was present, what they had to eat, how it was prepared and if each person liked their meal. For me, I assume that I usually have somewhere between 2 and 5 meals a day - and have done so most of my life. However, if pressed, yes, I can remember the bistecca alla fiorentina we had in Florence, in the Spring of 2000 something - “Ah, yes, I remember it well.” On the other hand I really do remember the tune and most of the lyrics to every top-40s hits from 1957, when my big brother was a teenager. So, memory is unique and certainly not infallible. In our photographic analogy, memory is like those little videos everyone now shoots on their phones. Little fragments of the past, moments digitally strung together, but still not “the whole thing.” We construct the whole thing. And the “whole thing” that we create is not so much an accurate reconstruction of the reality we lived as it is the “truth” we cobble together from moment and memory. It is the third M: Memoir. 

Memoir is one of the building blocks of our truth.  It is our life remembered, and, to certain extent reconstructed. Unless you are among that small population of folks blessed, or cursed, with a photographic or eidetic memory, we forget far more than we remember. And that is probably a good thing. We grow, we change, we evolve.  It is most likely not healthy to constantly remember a previous version of ourself that is at odds with the person we are now, or hope to be in the future. 

This notion of a “truth” and an “identity” largely based on these evolving and flexible memoirs has always fascinated me.  Most interesting is the implication that we are different, or at least differing, people at 6, 16, 60, 86, 106, etc., as our evolving memoirs construct evolving versions of truth and reality. Long time readers of these posts may sense a potential conflict here with the notion of “chord theory,” the variation of string theory upon which Distilled Harmony is based. Very, very basically, chord theory asserts that at the final, irreducible, physical level, we are uniquely constructed of tiny vibrating strings. Vibrating strings produce musical notes, hence, we are made of music. Furthermore, that unique music, that “chord” is the purest definition of the “self.” The potential conflict could arise with the evolving memoir’s impact on the self, and hence potentially upon the chord which is a physical construction. I resolve that possible conflict by remembering that memoir is a constructed reality. We use both moment and memory to construct memoir. It is the chord that guides that construction, which provides a fundamental consistency to the differing realities - differing selves - that we construct from 6 to 106.  

That assertion puts to rest a lingering concern I have always had regarding our evolving identity and mortality.  I am less comfortable with some of my past identities than the current version. Yet, neither am I content to define the current version as the final form. Both situations raise the uncomfortable question of “the interrupted self.” What happens to these evolving memoirs and their codependent versions of the self when we die? I find comfort in the following points:

The chord is constant and utterly unique to you. Like our DNA, which is itself built on the strings that express the chord, the chord may be subject to some evolutionary shifts, but those would be minor and consistent with the dominant tonality of the chord. So every expression of the chord in our lives, no matter how immature, retains the legitimate core of the chord, so death, “the interrupted self” is not the end of the story, particularly when you consider:

This life is only the most current expression of your chord. Distilled Harmony always cycles around to the notion that one lifetime is insufficient to the task of becoming a fully evolved entity. So, obviously, we must experience more than one lifetime. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Which segues neatly into another reoccurring Distilled Harmony meme (a word I swore to resist - but sometimes it just works): That which we call enlightenment, or nirvana, or inner peace, or ultimate oneness, or whatever, is that state of existence when we become aware of our previous existences and the truths, selves, identities, lessons, accumulated in those lives.

And, if we want to get really strange, in a “many worlds” view of existence it seems likely that we only die in one world at a time, hence our “self” and “identity” continue to evolve in those other worlds. And perhaps true enlightenment occurs when we come to realize that the many worlds are not really divergent, but are rather “covergent” paths leading .  .  .  well, somewhere. 

So, in any case, the 3Ms of meaning provide me with a seemingly never-ending supply of interesting “what ifs” to consider when sleep eludes me in the tiny hours of morning. Occasionally, I think I stumble upon meanings. Occasionally, I remember to write them down.

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