There is a deeper meaning connecting all of our life events together. Everything in our lives happens for a reason, and that reason is tied directly with our core being.
Now… I understand that when I start talking about “deep meaning”, that it sounds sort of spiritual and mystical… but please realize that I’ve come to this conclusion based on what I’ve seen. It’s the only logical conclusion I can come to based on the evidence I’ve been presented with. This isn’t a spiritual realization - this is an observation. Everything does have meaning.
Reality is just like a dream. When we dream, all these symbols and archetypes mesh together to form a strange experience. We wake up, and we might brush it away… or we might look for the deeper meaning. If I dream about building a tree house, this could mean that I’m trying to build an emotional sanctuary to escape to, in order to get away from my problems and feel at peace. There’s meaning. Reality is just like this.
For example, in my car I have two small rubiks cubes hanging from my rear view mirror. The heat made the stickers curl and fall off - so now they are just blank cubes. The rubiks cube represents difficult - but solvable - problems in my life. The stickers falling off represents that I won’t solve these problems in a conventional sense. I will solve the problems by transcending the rules of the game. The stickers fell to the floor in my car, and made a mess. This represents that by transcending the rules, I will create a mess as a result. The stickers had been on the floor for weeks in my car, and yesterday I finally took the time to pick them up and throw them out. This represents that I have finally cleaned up the resulting mess, and everything will work out.
Now - on the surface it just looks like I had some rubiks cubes in my car, the stickers fell off, and I didn’t clean it for a while. Who cares. But when you start treating things as if they have deeper meaning, then they start to actually have deeper meaning :-P.
You may argue that it’s my mind that’s creating this deeper meaning. That reality is random, and I’m just seeing something that isn’t there. You are correct - in a sense. You are correct that my mind is creating this deeper meaning. But the mistake is thinking that reality is random.
Reality is a mirror. There is no better way to put it. In fact, I was at the book store and I read a story highlighting this exact observation. I picked up a “random” book, and started reading “random” pages, and “stumbled” upon the following story (which I will attempt to recall from memory):
A dog entered a room. He spent some time in there, and upon leaving, he was gnarling, barking, growling, and overall just filled with anger. Another dog entered the same room. Upon leaving, he was happy, wagging his tail, with a huge smile on his face. What was in the room? It was a room of mirrors. THIS IS REALITY.
Some might argue that this is no big deal. I mean… everything has meaning. That’s great and everything, but ultimately - so what? That’s nothing new. I disagree with this apathetic response.
This is a big deal. The reason it’s a big deal is because it’s true :-P. This isn’t some philosophical inquiry about how reality might function. This isn’t some pot head drunk moment of clarity. It might come to the same conclusion - but the path is very different.
This is observable - 100% of the time. This is you reading this post. This is me writing this post. This is the keyboard under my fingertips. This is the fan next to my monitor. This is my roommate’s cats. This is my car. This is my relationships. This is my mother and father. This is my bed. This is my job. This is my body. It’s a reflection of myself. I am looking at myself. And therefore, all I can see is deep meaning.
So what’s the practicality of this observation? How does this realization actually help me? How can I actually use it in real life?
Well, for one, I’m going to use it to win the lottery :-P. I may go into the “how” in another post.
Ultimately, this realization helps me become a better person. By looking around me, I see where I am. Who I am. And the small problems that spring up in my life are reflections of problems in my own mind.
For example - I went through a time period of playing chess a little while ago. I bought chess books, studied chess, and tried to improve my chess skills. Looking back, I see deep meaning associated with this. I was attracted to chess for a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones was because I felt a lot of personal responsibility for where I was in my life. Chess intrigued me because in chess - you make all your own moves. No one forces you to move anywhere. The only difference between me and a Grandmaster is how we move. It’s not like poker, where we have to play the “cards were delt”. It’s not like trivia, where our knowledge dictates our success. It’s not football, where our physical strength is what counts. In chess, it’s a simple game, where we have to combine our intuition with our calculating abilities to make simple moves that win. That resonated with me. It’s a reflection.
By studying chess, what I was really trying to do was study the laws of reality. Figure out the game. Use intuition and reason to win.
Now - how does this observation help me? Well - let’s look at chess. For one person to win, another has to lose. As with most games. If I felt a strong connection with chess, and knew that my interest in chess was a reflection of my desire to learn the laws of reality and “win”, then I can see a problem. The problem is that in reality, I don’t have to make someone else lose for me to win. Everyone can win in reality. But if I feel that I must make someone else lose in order for me to win, then that uncovers an unhealthy belief that needs to be dealt with. So - by seeing the interest I had in chess, I can quickly see that I need to inspect my beliefs about the duality of winning and losing, and figure out why I feel that I need to make others lose in order for me to win. And once I root out the problem, I will stop resonating with chess, and become uninterested in it. Which is what happened.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t play chess :-P. Chess means different things to different people, at different times in their life. When I was younger, I used to play chess a lot. I played against a computer. That probably had a completely different meaning at the time :-P.
I’ve outlined two examples in my life on how simple things have deeper meaning (rubiks cube, and chess). I’ve made these observations in dozens, if not hundreds of things in my life in the past month. I am amazed at how everything fits together seamlessly. When we see one or two connections, things become curious. But when we start to unravel the entire web of meaning, then it’s … simply amazing at how accurate of a mirror reality is.
By looking at our interests, we can predict problems that will arise in different areas of our life. Why do we resonate with something? Are there some unhealthy reasons for why we enjoy what we enjoy? How will these unhealthy beliefs filter through to other areas of our lives and create discord? If I can predict all of this, can I start to actually create a better reality by making small - and seemingly unrelated - decisions in my life? Can I win the lottery by being nice to my roommate’s cat? 
(or am I just insane?! :-P)
July 29th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Heh, it’s kinda funny… A little ways into your post I thought about the dice games I was playing earlier today and how reality being a reflection could help me have won them, and then all of the sudden I was reading about how you were going to use your revelation to win the lottery.
Can’t wait to see your next post!
July 30th, 2007 at 12:06 am
I’ve been thinking about this a lot but as a kind of vain idea floating around in the back of my mind. This little post help to solidify it in my mind.
Do you ever get that feeling peebrain- like you’re in sync with reality? Not as a meaningless thought in your head but really feel a powerful surge of peace and depth and everything in your life makes sense and you have all this energy and you don’t know what to do with it? Its a very difficult feeling to describe but the “everything is meaningful” idea is palpable in that state. Maybe I’m “experiencing” spirituality instead of just thinking about it…
July 30th, 2007 at 12:16 am
Hey_you - Yes. Not often though :-P. Human drama sucks me back… inward digging moves me forward. Experience always trumps thinking. Reality knocks.
July 30th, 2007 at 11:07 am
I dig the post, it makes a lot of sense. I’ve had a number of experiences in my life that were just too “coincidental” for me to write off as random events. I’ve read everything you’ve posted about the lottery project, and I can see and understand the connections you’ve made to get from point to point, but I just can’t help but be skeptical of the possibility. Maybe I’d better go back and re-read! I really want you to win!
July 30th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
“Can I win the lottery by being nice to my roommate’s cat?
(or am I just insane?! :-P)”
—
“The problem is that in reality, I don’t have to make someone else lose for me to win.”
Well, I could say the generic “Healthy Karma!” but it’s good to see this change in perspective. Even if it doesn’t help with the lottery, it’s great to be thinking positive.
July 30th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
After reading your post, Peabrain, I’ve started to theorize a bit, trying to put up a kind of “explanation” (can there really ever be one??? :P) for these strange things.
I’ve come up with the suspicion that each of us lives in his own little universe and controls it, connected to all the others only by a thin thread we call “life”. It could very well be possible that each and every one of us is subconsciously engineering his universe and changing things. Some to reflect our current situation in life, some better, some worse. Maybe this variant of a “multiverse” theory could explain some other abnormal things.
But if there were many universes controlled by many people, the world would be entirely subjective and our imagination is the only thing that limits us. However, this isn’t the case. This could be explained by assuming that all of these consciousnesses/universes are affecting each other. Which, in real life, is the case (interactions with others affect almost everything). Maybe this is also true on a more spiritual plane.
Maybe it’s time for me to just take a break from this “quest for knowledge” :-). I hold the personal belief that knowing all about reality is impossible, because we are part of itself. However, I do believe that it is possible to poke small holes through the blinds that keep our eyes off the ultimate truth. We’ll only ever be able to know but a small part of that which is ultimate. IMHO, humans are too limited to know but a fraction, a hairs width away from zero.
July 30th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
ClearVision,
You’re speaking of subjective reality (do I sound like a broken record). Where only you exist inside of your world and you create everything in it, even the “other” people. Its a fun theory to ponder but I think it is very very hard to fully believe.
I’m reading Einstein’s biography right now (the latest one), and there’s some stuff in it where he refutes the idea that humans are not capable of understanding reality. He viewed that theory as a cop out and as selling oneself short.
I tend to agree with you, though, at least for now. But if we create our own reality, can we not know ourselves completely?
July 30th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Peebs you should totally read the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Basically the entire storyline is based off the concept that everything is connected somewhat in the way you described. Just a suggestion, great post btw
July 30th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Just remember, you never know quite as much as you think you do.
July 30th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Hehe, hey war, this is from a different blog post I made earlier today:
Maybe we’re connected, too !!!
July 31st, 2007 at 2:15 am
This sort of concept is something that should seem really obvious, but most people never point it out. One could argue, ” Of course it has meaning, everything happens because of something else. ”
I have extreme anxiety when it comes to being in public and would often ignore physical needs so I wouldn’t draw attention to myself. I recall a situation when I forced myself to do some things just to break habit and fear. When I was waiting outside a class that day, a big black beetle was standing in the middle of the hallway. I was sitting there, staring at it, when it suddenly ran straight at me, and I jumped up out of it’s way as it ran right where I was sitting. I can’t deliver a clearer explanation because I don’t know exactly what else I was going through at the time, but dodging a beetle attack by jumping straight up quickly was a small accomplishment of what I was trying to achieve.
Another occasion was during this summer but a little back story is needed first. I’ve been trying to have OBEs for a long time to no avail, and keep getting discouraged from having them. I used to like toads and frogs a lot when I was younger, and would play with wild ones when I would go out of town, but couldn’t when I was at home because there were none in this area. A book I often get lost in lately features a lot of frog monsters as part of a evil prophecy.
So one night I was walking my dog, thinking about OBEs, when I saw a toad in the middle of the road. I moved it out of the road, and thought that it was a sign that I could OBE. I still haven’t had one as far as I know.
Any ideas as to what that one could mean?
July 31st, 2007 at 3:20 am
I’ve been wanting to reply to this post and the last one, but I’ve been busier than usual, and I can’t seem to find the right words to say…
You have to be careful with this sort of thing though, so that you don’t trick yourself into seeing what you want to see. If you look hard enough for something, you will find it. I’m not denying that everything has meaning or that things happen for a reason, I’m just saying that sometimes you take all of the signs, and interpret them to support some aspect of yourself that you really wish was true.
When you described the rubiks cube thing, the explanation that came to my mind was this:
You have a rubiks cube in your car, representing a challenge or a problem. All the stickers fall off. You say it represents that you find an alternate solution to the problem. What it says to me is, the opportunity for solution is gone. The key that would let you put things right again, and solve the problem, has been lost. So where you see it as a problem that you have solved unconventionally, it seems to me that it is a problem whose time has passed, and which can no longer be solved.
As for the toad thing, I think it just means you saw a toad in the middle of the road…
July 31st, 2007 at 10:33 am
Thanks for everyone’s continued comments. This topic interests me because I believe I can use it to win the lottery. Your thoughts provoke different lines of questioning, which is always helpful :-).
~Sean
July 31st, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Yes, I saw a toad in the middle of the road after over a decade of never seeing one anywhere in the area. Ever.
July 31st, 2007 at 6:04 pm
I saw one when I was putting my car away one night. It was really big. I don’t know what it meant though if it was supposed to mean anything. I haven’t seen a toad around since I was really little…
August 1st, 2007 at 12:47 am
Interesting post, Sean… a couple of thoughts about it:
I guess I sort of agree that everything has meaning. Even though i don’t find that belief that much empowering. It already starts with the amount of data you could interpret. If everything has meaning, then.. well.. I sort of have to/could interpret all sorts of things. Basically every 5 minutes of reality bear some sort of deeper wisdom that you might uncover that lead to new decisions. But well.. new decisions every 5 minutes? I have even trouble to keep up with all the things that I decided a week ago.
Then the question of interpretation. As war1025 pointed out, there are quite a number of possible interpretation for any given situation. I often read blog posts like: ‘It is all clear to me know, this means this and that’ and then a day later: ‘oh, I had it figured out all wrong.. instead it meant that and this’. You could say that it’s maybe not that important whether the interpretation is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ as long as it is ‘valuable’. But then again: If it is only about coming up with smart insights and fitting those onto the data that you have, you can also look at tarot cards.. at least it is no longer an argument for why everything should have meaning. (If you give meaning to everything of course everything has meaning then).
And then finally: It’s a whole bunch of blame to take. =) Blame to take for all those significant and insignificant things that go wrong in my life. And what about things like 9/11? Did my beliefs about reality made this happen? Or wait.. 9/11 happened in your universes as well, didn’t it? ;-P
August 1st, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Jav, there is no “our universes.” Everything you see and hear and read and experience is in “your universe.” Me typing this is not an external person somewhere at a desk with a keyboard, it is inside of you, as is the chair you’re sitting in and the screen you’re looking at and the neighbor you spoke with earlier and the people on the tv screen. And yes, even the 9/11 victims, terrorists, families, reporters, buildings, airplanes, theories, dissenters, and soldiers.
That’s one theory, anyhow :-]
August 14th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Believe in the cat! : P