Take This! How do you find meaning... through conversation?

Learning to pause, wait and listen to make the sense real

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I see meaning in the most ordinary of objects. For the last four or so years, I’ve been taking photographs of elastic bands that I find on the street. I don’t touch or alter them in any way. They just speak to me. I love how you can find beauty in the ordinary. And then the way the elastic band lies, I am free to attribute meaning to it. Squiggly, infinity, broken… It’s not necessarily deep, but it’s usually a way to pick up on something that’s seated deeply in my unconscious. And it certainly gets my creative juices flowing. The real trick is surfacing the meaning. When people are arguing, we often lose touch with the true meaning of what’s being said or felt. You will hear people yell at someone, “What do you mean, you did that [thing]?” Of course, we’re not seeking the underlying "meaning.” We’re too angered to listen deeply to understand the meaning. In so much of today’s acerbic argument, we’re too busy thinking our thoughts and preaching our beliefs that we don’t look to learn from one another, much less seek a deeper meaning. What if we looked at everyone as a way to grow and become better? It’s not about succumbing or being weak. Au contraire, it’s about being stronger and bigger, and being able to make more sense of what’s going on.

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Earlier in this Dialogos, we dissected the words dialogue, discussion and debate. We also looked at what makes a conversation meaningful. However, there’s still a need to understand the sense of meaning itself. This is an absolutely vital component of conversation. What does meaning mean for someone? Why does one thing mean one thing for one person and another for another person? This is far from a novel topic, of course. The seminal book by CK Ogden and IA Richard, The Meaning of Meaning, published in 1923, is a must read. One thing seems sure, meaning exists once it is expressed through words. The abstract materializes through the language we use to describe what we feel or sense.

Take this!

Personally, I’ve long enjoyed studying the meaning of words themselves, finding out the etymology, and looking at the difference between languages. I’m a linguistics geek, lover of semantics and semiotics and happy to read a dictionary. It’s rather extraordinary to me to think back to how words were actually formed, their journey over time, into different languages and across different cultures. A fine example (in the midst of Roland Garros) is the word tennis. It comes from the French ‘tenez,’ which was called by the server to the receiver in lawn tennis’ ancestral game of “Real Tennis,” or “Court Tennis” as it’s called in the US. Tenez means, in this context, “Take this! Here it [the ball] comes.” In one fell* swoop, you get to learn about the French heritage of tennis and the competitive nature of the game.

Different truths

In any event, the notion of meaning opens the door to different truths. What a story means to you versus to someone else can be different. Your truth matters to you and that’s pretty normal. The challenge lies in understanding how meaning varies and being able to understand other people’s perception, their version. When you hear a story (especially when it’s well told), our deeply human nature kicks in. We relate and connect into the story. Storytelling can be so powerful for this reason. What we hear will depend on our filters, including our past experiences and baggage. We create our own meaning. As a storyteller, you need to let go of your own meaning in the story and allow others to roll with their interpretation. To let go fully, to have that freedom, is most ably done when you’ve figured yourself out, understood your deeper motivations and embraced your imperfections and fears.

Start with yourself

One of the crucible elements of understanding oneself is to lean in to what counts most for you. By being aware of what matters to oneself, one gains a foothold on that most elusive idea of self-knowledge. It also enables you to take a step back, provide a buffer when talking with someone else as you strive to understand them. This means being able to concentrate on the other person’s words and feelings, rather than worry or question your own. Focus on what they mean, without inserting judgment. Before finding meaning, you need to pay attention. We must “attendre” or wait. Sigmund Freud said, as a therapist, that he must attend to a client, that he must wait until meaning is formed.

Learning to wait…

It is abundantly clear that in our society, our patience and willingness to wait is treacherously slim. We have developed little space to listen to one another. This manifests in so many ways. We are quick to get bored. We will whip out the smartphone. We will interrupt. We will switch off and/or judge. And, according to our internal emotions, we also are quick to get triggered, angered. In the first place, we have so much to gain by learning and staying ferociously curious. In the second place, we can all grow and make something better and bigger. I’m not just thinking of resolving our divisiveness, I’m wishing for us, as my friend Lisa says, to find a higher enlightenment, the endless power in hope and love. If we let “it” happen, the karmic energies will come back to you and us in spades. Tenez, are you ready?

The real trick is surfacing the meaning. When people are arguing, we often lose touch with the true meaning of what’s being said or felt. You will hear people yell at someone, “What do you mean, you did that [thing]?” Of course, we’re not seeking the underlying "meaning.” We’re too angered to listen deeply to understand the meaning. In so much of today’s acerbic argument, we’re too busy thinking our thoughts and preaching our beliefs that we don’t look to learn from one another, much less seek a deeper meaning. What if we looked at everyone as a way to grow and become better? It’s not about succumbing or being weak. Au contraire, it’s about being stronger and bigger, and being able to make more sense of what’s going on.

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*Fell in this expression means (in Shakespeare’s time), vicious and cruel!