The humanist

"Meaning is an inescapable notion because it is not something simple or simply determined. It is simultaneously an experience of a subject and a property of a text. It is both what we understand and what in the text we try to understand. Arguments about meaning are always possible, and in that sense meaning is undecided, always to be decided, subject to decisions which are never irrevocable. If we must adopt some overall principle or formula, we might say that meaning is determined by context, since context includes rules of language, the situation of the author and the reader, and anything else that might conceivably be relevant. But if we say that meaning is context-bound, then we must add that context is boundless: there is no determining in advance what might count as relevant, what enlarging of context might be able to shift what we regard as the meaning of a text. Meaning is context-bound, but context is boundless."

I think the previous quote is actually something to live by. We can apply it to all areas of life. Especially in conflict, and by conflict I don't mean arguments you have with your neighbour about your morning paper that always seems to vanish, I also mean the conflicts you have with yourself as in how to set your behaviour for a particular situation. Even though the quote comes from a literary theory textbook, I must widen what I believe that literature is. I won't go into detail as to what literature actually is, it it's not as straight forward as the general idea might have you thinking. So, if I in this context mean literature as something created by the human mind my interpretation might seem a bit more adequate.

What is the meaning of the things we say, do and think and how can we put that into perspective - how do we put ourselves into a context in which we can exist? Or, who are we, depending on the same?

Personally, I have a vauge idea of how I want to be perceived, even though at times it seems hard to mask those bits of me that don't fit into that picture. I'm hardly as mysterious as I seem to come off, I'm hardly mysterious at all! In the perfect context I'm in a surrounding with people matching my views and values, and in the presence of beauty, physically, a constant autumn with cats and deep windows. But there is no such perfect place. People will be who they are and I'm not taken into concideration, nor should I be. So why is it that I try to take others into concideration? The most loving way I can interpret that is that I am my very own Tintomara. I'm a statue that changes apperance depending on the angle from which you view her. The statue itself doesn't change, it's only so many different things depending on how you look at it.

This could possibly be the explaination as to why I feel exhausted after being around people, I read too much into everything, like a true humanist. A humanist is never quite satisfied, a humanist will always ask "Why is that?" and I will continue to do so, for the good of my own sanity. I'll always have more questions than answers, and I'm satisfied, to an extent, with that. There's no judgement of those with a different view of life even if I might as myself "Why do they have a different view of life?" and then I'll ponder that and come to absolutley no conclusion other than a list and five philosophical essays as to why it could possibly be so.

So, when I take a little too long to say Hello when greeted, don't get discouraged, I'm simply asking myself "Why is your head tilted in such a way?" like the true humanist I am.