Wednesday 22nd November, 2023
What’s this desperate need to be meaningful?
Most of us are trying to be meaningful, in whatever way seems possible or valuable to us. We wanna say something profound in conversations that will probably be forgotten, something about the texture of a pastry, or something else of equal insignificance. Some of us want to move our body in such a way that it unlocks some kind of meaningful feeling in another person watching. Hell, even the weirdo tech billionaires are trying to change the world in some meaningful way. From any point along the human spectrum, we can’t escape the desperate search for meaning…
For me, it’s all about ‘the song’. When I write, when I rewrite, when I play, & when I sing… what I’m trying to do is be profound. Why I do this is just out of my own reach. We could say that I’m just trying to make myself more valuable to the world. Being an artist does tend to bring your value into question within the current system that we’re gradually overturning. This answer is incomplete though. It feels a little hollow. When we find the truth, a meaningful one, we know it… it feels true. When someone hands me a flavoured tea, I know if there’s actually Cameillia Sinensis in it. The ‘tea’ plant has a quality that is unmistakeable. (side note: don’t ever give me a flavoured tea)
When I first read ‘The Prophet’ by Khalil Gibran, there was an unmistakeable truth in what I was reading. It was as if I’d known all of this already… that this was merely the first time I had seen this knowledge articulated. There’s a lot of meaning in that text for me. When I think of people that I love, which is A LOT of people… I want them to experience the comfort I felt when I read that book. I want them to feel justified in all of their feelings about the world, about what it’s like to have a body, a heart, & a mind that just won’t respond. The feeling is usually described as a moment wherein you stop feeling so alone. Like the author / artist truly understands you… but even in this description there is tea missing.
When I try to be meaningful, I’m trying to justify my own existence & experience… but I’m also trying to justify the existence & experience of those I love. Not only those I love directly like my families & friends, but those I love indirectly for their existence. People like you reading this, or people feeling lost. How can you not love someone who’s lost? You’ve been lost, you know what it’s like… we can sympathise to the point of love, which in a way, I’m actually trying to extend to literally everyone in the world. (which can get really difficult & problematic, but that’s a discussion for another time)
There are three tragedies in my life, some real, some potential. One is that a friend will never get to see me succeed like he wanted me to. Another is that I may never end up having children. & the final one is that I may never create something meaningful.
This here, what you’ve just read, is an answer full of tea.
& now I’m crying on the bus…
Nathan
