Meaning Unenforced
What happens when metaphor goes beyond symbolic meaning?
We once believed Earth was the center of the universe—still, chosen, supreme. Humanity has always been tempted to place itself at the center of existence. The astronomical map of pre-Copernican society reflected more than the stars and space. It tells of our psychological instinct to imagine ourselves as the fixed point around which everything else revolves.
Until the map is more accurately redrawn.
The sun is the center of our solar system. Nicolaus Copernicus published this model in 1543. Though this Earth-to-Sun relationship had been posited by Aristarchus of Samos as early as the 3rd century BC.
Namesakes aside, an updated map raises a new quest…ion—or series of them, ideally. Does new information actually compel us to update the manner in which we orient ourselves in the larger cosmos? Moreover, are we on such a quest that begets discovery, or is our chosen path one that requires a blind eye?
Missing the Mark
Sin does not originally mean evil. Its etymology points toward missing the mark, from the Greek hamartia—an arrow gone wide. To sin is to miss the point—far less theatrical than we imagine. It can be pretending not to see. Or allowing the repetition of avoiding discomfort to become its own ritual.
The heliocentric model allows us to orient ourselves in the vast mystery of space. To have heard of mystery is one thing, to embrace it is another entirely. Perhaps the latter might make even the most critical tyrant a bit loose, suggestible even. To continually coerce another man into deriving identical meaning from a series of mystifying parts is like asking a child to abandon all curiosity in the world.
Discovery is contingent upon continuing to question. Enforced meaning does not supply an answer—it decapitates the method by which anything new could be discovered. Monoculture forgets this truth as it attempts to sterilize human diversity.
Knowing our place in the cosmos is only as good as questioning how far those celestial corridors might extend. Certainty cannot be derived from symbols, nor can entire truths be pulled from stories that were written on earth to contend with the eeriness of existence.
If the intent behind the compulsion were recognized by the participant, perhaps then he might make room for his neighbor to have a similarly revelatory relationship with his own cosmic possibilities. The real magic is that two completely opposite experiences can coexist—symbiotically benefiting one another or unaware entirely of the other's presence.
Though what happens when a man forces another to feel what he feels, see what he sees? When metaphor becomes a narrowing tunnel that justifies coercion, the luster of human possibility dwindles. When one is barred from looking out and beyond inherited maps, they must find it in them to ask who is concealing the sky, and why.
Awe, looking up, finding reason to move through life’s turbulence—that is a better motivator than instructing men to peer through the same lenses.
Writing Our Own Stories
Every generation inherits narratives that feel inescapable until someone demonstrates otherwise. Freedom may not be possible for those who cannot safely abandon an outdated societal role. Risking life for sovereignty may not be a reasonable choice. If you are able to break the contracts that deny your freedom, readily evolving in your chosen direction, then it is time to help those who cannot risk that specific kind of escape.
Meaning cannot be enforced. Ideology, conspiracy, or bedtime stories that help us sleep at night are conduits for recognizing our temporality. While they may offer us comfort, they cannot serve as pillars from which we derive fact. Of course there, written history requires record. But one begins to wonder, who is the holder of the pen? And what might happen if I gave my own testament? Or the worst to occur if I forge my own path in a new direction? One cannot help but wonder how such an act of personal sovereignty could disturb the highest of leaders. Counselors of the people must act as conduits, vessels, rather than their own superfluous iterated deity.
Humanity is collectively powerful. We each possess the suns of our own cities. Each person holds an inner space—a terrarium of possibility and unique experiences: a map of desire and disturbances, braided together by an invisible need that perhaps can only be uncovered, or understood, by way of following that interpersonal cartography. Which cannot be distributed as a software update. It must be elected for, embedded, chosen fully.
The lifespan of monotheistic religions is contingent on obedience and repetition. What happens when sacrament is disrupted, not out of disrespect for the symbol, but to engage the divine in a new way? Who holds the keys to the ambient ritual?
Without rehearsed compliance, rigid plots falter. Stories require characters, actors to carry out scenes. Authorship will never belong exclusively to those who hold seats of power. It abides with every individual who has ever walked the earth. When one diverts from an inherited script, what happens to the productions who once benefited from the preservation of such roles?