Saturday, December 19, 2020

To find meaning

Presence is most important understanding. That is, you as a sentient being connect to the reality with all the senses. This then links, slowly but deliberately, as conscious to what is not perceived. Over the years with dedicated work and scrutiny one attunes to the best that is to offer. Getting attuned to excellence –pinnacle of possibilities, takes lots of effort as much as getting connected to simple and common. It could be subtlety of sights epitomized through nature or efforts of art. It could be ideas or thoughts that one seeks through searing presences in books, talks or writings or sometimes through visual mediums or images, that connects to the best thoughts over the centuries and contemporary and points to fertile future and possibilities. Meanwhile the mind works through its own ways of assimilation and consolidation and evolves its individual conceptions and insights in this nurturing ecosystem. Internet has made the connection to excellence much easier and eclectic thoughts accessible. There is no need to walk to the library and spent time on searching though not denying that these were charming activities. 

It is in this rich tapestry that one encounters words. Words that consolidate meanings into ideas and possibilities herein. These words carry insights and understandings of thinking minds that deliberated. These words with rich meanings, subtleties of thoughts and ideas encapsulated are being wrenched and thrown into haggling and deceit of market media. Visual media is defining arbitrator of issues and topics to highlight and is influencing majority of unthinking minds into herds which is having severe repercussions. Debate, which is a serious degradation of sane discussion into neoliberal social Darwinian binary, is ruining interactions and articulation to act. It is reduced to show of absurdities that is sucking reality into farce. For instance words like liberal and conservative are being tagged, boxed, into narrow binary meanings devoid of any subtleties or nuance of deliberation or context hence is meant to indicate bearers as competing forces thus cleverly segregating people into warring camps. There is an ease of effort, a monstrous simplification, meant to land into deep recess of herds and keep them held there. Market media and greedy arbitrators are accused of dumbing down and reducing issues as spectacles for consumption.                     

Words are not dead. They live and thrive. They have rich meaning that are an intrinsic aspect of evolving minds, an elemental aspect of individual presence, social interactions and defining feature of society. All these assimilate the words into richer tapestry of communication and meaning. Words therefore must be assigned its nuance to hold the possibilities. When words are taken out of context and held into single restrain meant as identity it dies. And with it dies the diversity of possibilities and contexts. These attempts to convert words into staid transactional currency to please and trap the herd must be resisted. Herds must be jostled from their market festooned bovine comfort and religion supported relaxing swings into the chaos of life and possibilities of individuals merging and emerging from multitude. And for that to happen words must be alive.