Uncovering Our Meaning

Written by: Emmanuel

By liking what we do and living our meaning, we're in harmony with everyone and everything. Emmanuel van der Meulen. CEO, Peace Evolution.

Published: August 3, 2020

womans eye with caption | our meaning | Peace EvolutionLet’s take a look at our daydreams and how they help unlock our meaning.

But first . . .

Say you and I and others have all the money and any other resources in the world. What would we like to do with our lives?

Say we don’t need to work anymore. Say we have everything that our heart desires. Or, say we have nothing that our heart desires.

Imagine Having Whatever Money Can Buy

Then let’s imagine having whatever money can buy.

Let’s say we have everything already, or nothing. Say we are down and out.

Let’s imagine you have nothing, but you have everything at your disposal.

Particularly, you have all the money you would ever need at your disposal. And say that everything you can imagine is possible for you to achieve, and because you have the money to achieve whatever you want, you could also obtain any resources you require.

Oh, and like the others, you have so much money, it’ll never dry up. Whatever we use is immediately replaced.

So the groundwork is set. You have wherever your life is at when reading this, and in addition, all the money in the world at your disposal. What would you do?

You could go and buy the house of your dreams. Once that is done, you could buy the car of your dreams. Once that is done, you might take the holiday you’ve been daydreaming about. And since you don’t have to worry about going back to work, you can take an extended holiday.

You might have other dreams also—for example, that you meet the partner of your dreams.

You might already have some of what I’m mentioning here. If so, you can just skip over that point, or get or do an alternative.

There might be other aspects. Say you’re distant from people close to your heart. You might now be in a position to rekindle that relationship with a friend, a partner, a family member, even your children.

The point being, you now have all the time in the world and you can come and go and do as you please. And furthermore, you could get the things you’ve always only dreamed of.

What about living our meaning and values?

You might even go and look for a child you’ve lost contact with. You might even go and look up a parent you’ve been estranged from. Or look up a family member you’ve been meaning to find.

You now have all the money and resources, and yes, let’s say you now also have all the courage you usually lack.

So you could now go and find those people, buy these things, do the things you’ve always wanted to do.

You might not even know what you’d like to do. You might have had such a deprived life up to now, you don’t even know what your daydreams are, or what they are about, or how you would attain what your daydreams are about. Our daydreams help unlock our meaning.

But as you go for your daydreams, one small step at a time, the courage and confidence would grow and grow until, after very many little successes, you’d feel like you can do just about anything. And besides, you have all the money in the world and all the resources. Keeping in mind we would want to include our meaning.

You might even go on a binge of drinking and drugging, since you can now afford anything and everything and as much of anything and everything as you might desire.

You might even “buy” friends or create a flamboyant lifestyle since you have all the money you could ever need or want. You might even get yourself an entourage to go with you wherever you go. You might even get yourself bodyguards and the like. You might even want to get your cars armored.

Imagine that you have everything at your disposal and your whole life ahead of you. And, if you’re older, you might still have some years to go with which you can do whatever your heart desires with the rest of your life.

You can do things you like, you can do things you don’t like, you can do whatever you want and you have enough money to buy your way out of whatever trouble you might get into along the way. Is this behavior based on living our meaning?

You might even buy an island. You might get fashion models for partners. Remember, you have all the resources and you can’t deplete anything ever.

This imagining has no end to it, it’s not a joke, and the money will never dry up. The more you use the money, the more the money is replaced.

Whatever you can imagine, that is what you can have.

So the scene is set. You might even get a village and get whomever you want to live there in the village with you. You don’t have to work. You don’t have to ever give money a second thought. Your slightest wish or daydream or command is what happens.

You might buy an oceangoing liner, just for your pleasure, and invite anyone you want to join you, and you might then cruise to anywhere in the world. You might go even further and build your own space vehicle, and travel in space wherever the technology can take you.

There is absolutely nothing you can’t have or can’t achieve, and this will never stop. And the more you do, the more ideas you’ll get, and the more you’d be able to do.

And by the way, because of your stature and status, you even have a following, so you’ll never be without admirers and friends. Is such a life based on living our meaning?

You could have movies made based on whatever theme you can conjure up. You can have musicians make music for you of whatever music you like.

If you like something and someone else has it, you can merely make them an offer they can’t refuse. If someone doesn’t want to play ball, you can get a team of legal experts to find a way to get what you want and drive the hardball to a point where they’ll give up what they have so you can get what you want from them.

If a country doesn’t want to play ball, you could get another country with the necessary armament to declare war on the country that is playing hardball.

There is nothing that you can’t get. You have all the money and all the resources. You can even fly to your destinations with your own planes that are custom-designed to suit you and your own style.

You can hire the best and most professional people to do for you whatever you might want done or might desire. Is such a life based on liking what we do, and on living our meaning and values?

By now, the scene is nearly set to the fullest. Is your imagination running wild yet? Have you gotten what you wanted? Is there anything left that you can still think of that you’d want?

Oh, you might, at last, with all the resources at your disposal, have any partner you desire and have as much sex as your heart desires. You might even live any and every sexual fantasy that you’ve always dreamed of, because it’s now in your power to find exactly the person or persons to live your sexual fantasies with.

You might now have the power that you always wanted, and with this power you can do the things you’ve always wanted to do before you had all this power. And besides, if anything bothers you or gets in your way, it’s merely a matter of getting a solution to overcome whatever bothers you or gets in your way.

Is the scene almost completely set yet? Not yet.

Imagine some more, and do or have whatever else comes to mind. Have it. Do it. Nothing is too big or too small. Live every moment with the understanding of having and doing whatever your heart desires. No matter at what cost.

Does such a life depict us liking what we do, and living our meaning, or is living our meaning something altogether different?

The scene is set. If it is not yet set for the others, then run with whatever comes up: No matter what, just go and have and do, and don’t mind those that have already got to the point where the scene is set. We’ll wait here for those who still have things to do and who have desires not yet fulfilled.

Thus, the scene is set for some and not yet set for others. And this is where we’ll all wait for those still imagining and desiring and fulfilling those desires.

Oh, there is a last-minute desire that just reared its head. Okay, okay, go off and explore that desire, and don’t let anything stand in your way. This is indeed the case where we can have and can do whatever we want.

Everyone will oblige us, and if someone won’t oblige us, we have the means to make those not wanting to be part of our world play ball with us.

Okay. Now it seems the scene is fully set, and here is where we’ll wait for anyone still out in their world doing whatever they want to come and join us. We’ll just wait here for however long it takes.

A last-minute desire that you just remembered popped up. It’s about where you take a trip, in your car or on your motorbike, around the country. Oh, and yes, you’d like to write that book you’ve thought of several times.

Well, now is the chance for you to do it. Do it. Take that trip and write that book, and remember, it doesn’t matter how long it takes. But it is important that you take the trip . . . or write the book . . . rather than just thinking about it. Go on, take the trip or write the book.

Something Missing

At this time, everyone is done with the imagining exercise and busy settling down.

We now go into another direction. This time, we’re going somewhere else altogether.

As you undertook these imaginary steps, questions were asked about our meaning?

As you undertook these imaginary activities, what did you experience? It’s likely that you were exhilarated, even anxious. It might have felt unbelievable. But in the main, when the dust settled on all these imaginary activities and when your emotions returned to normal and when you calmed yourself, and when looking back, what is it that you experienced during and after doing the imaginary activities?

Oh, by the way, keep in mind you undertook these activities in your imagination, and now we all might even be years and years older, even if just in our imagination.

Might it be you experienced that something was missing when doing the imaginary activities? Did the activity provide satisfaction? Were you content? Did the satisfaction only last a bit longer than the activity? Is it possible that the satisfaction died out, even before you were finished with the activity? Why is that, was our meaning missing?

And it doesn’t only need to be satisfaction that you experienced. With any uplifting feeling you experienced, any euphoric sensations you experienced while living the imaginary activities, is it likely that you feel as if something was missing?

Whatever you experienced, was the experience lasting? Was the experience enjoyable? Are those imaginary activities things that you’d want to experience again and again? Did something feel missing? Did your experiences have meaning?

Or, is it likely that now you’ve done the activities, albeit in your imagination, and experienced their upliftment, that you’re at a point where you’ve had enough? Certainly, there would be some things you’d like to experience again, possibly many more times.

Again, when looking at the imaginary activities and recalling what you experienced, could you conclude that something might have been missing? If so, do you dare look at what might have been missing? Was our meaning present in the experiences, did they lack our meaning?

Let’s work on some assumptions. Everyone might not have felt that something was missing. Some of us might still be yearning for some imaginary things we never got around to, or imaginary things we’d like to repeat again.

Some of us might not have such imaginations where we could feel and experience sensations from these activities. And some of us might not have experienced much, or maybe experienced nothing, or experienced just a little bit. Or even if just a glimpse, we might have experienced our meaning?

Or we possibly thought that the imagining exercise was just silly. To anyone of us who didn’t experience much, or who thought the imagining exercise silly, it’s likely that this imaginary world is possibly not for all of us. It’s also possible that we might not be ready for this material yet—or might never be ready.

However, for those of us still reading, and having felt and experienced something more than a little from the imagining exercise, let us continue.

Let’s look a little deeper into what might have been missing. Were our experiences superficial and therefore something was missing, might our meaning be missing from what we experienced?

During these imaginary activities, we were “living” certain activities we might have daydreamed about. They were born in our daydreams, and we manifested them in our imagination. We can almost be certain these activities were devised from us thinking that if we had the things or did the things we imagined, we would be rid of whatever need the dreaming was based on.

Or, that we would be satisfied in ourselves for having gotten or done those things. Or, some were even based on our meaning?

Unfortunately, things don’t likely work that way. Whatever shortcomings we might have on which the daydreams or desires are based—not physical shortcomings but emotional ones—they’re likely based on our interpretation of the daydream, an interpretation that was likely created from our Factor-x.

So, getting or doing these things, as per the imagining exercise, isn’t likely to do it for us. At the end of the imaginary activities, when the dust settles, even if over months or years of pursuing a dream, we are likely left with the same emptiness, or still feeling that something is missing. We are unlikely to be able to address what is missing or to fill that possible emptiness with anything. This isn’t because the activities were imagined. Might it be that our meaning and our values were missing?

The Extent of What Is Missing

The problem is, there is no hole to be filled. Nothing is missing. There is no deficiency to be attended to. There is no emptiness that needs filling. We are unable to do things to fill any void because there isn’t one, what is indeed missing, is that we are missing in what we do – that is attained when whatever we do is based on us living our meaning.

We daydream about things, and we interpret those things as things we’d like to do, and we believe that when we do those things, we’ll feel fulfilled. We thus feel that whatever is missing will be attained. But the daydreams are likely interpreted from our perspective created by our standards and norms and our Factor-x. This is not the case. Whatever we do is only fulfilling when it is based on our meaning.

Oh, the need to fulfill ourselves is there, and the daydream is created from a need, but nothing we have or do will fulfill or remove the feeling that something is missing. That is, while we’re looking external to ourselves. With our frame of reference and our Factor-x looming, we’re likely to interpret desires and needs to be fulfilled externally. Thus, we’re likely looking externally. And the opposite is true. Where we bring of ourselves to what we do, by bringing our meaning.

When we start uncovering what the missing feeling is about, and we look internally, we stand a chance to uncover the origin of the missing feeling. As a result, we can address the missing feeling.

Anything else we do while looking externally is merely treating the symptom. When we stop and look internally, however, that’s when we’re on a track to address the cause. When we address the cause of the feeling that something is missing, that’s the only way we get away from either the feeling that something is missing or the ensuing feeling of emptiness. This stops when living our meaning.

Our Meaning Is Missing

So now, the scene is completely set for us to look at what is missing.

The author of Five Questions To Uncover Your Purpose asks: In the quiet moments, when you’re truly honest with yourself, you aren’t even sure why you are doing what you’re doing today (beyond just paying the bills). You have no idea how you ended up here.

Our meaning is almost certainly what’s missing when we want or do things to appease us. This statement needs deep thought. Something eternally does not fill the void or appease us. Though when what we do is based on our meaning, we’re living in a way where we are true to ourselves.

When we’ve uncovered our meaning, we are manifesting ourselves, and whatever we might need or want will be things that are part of us manifesting ourselves, as opposed to us wanting or doing things to address something that might feel missing—to fill a hole in our lives. When our meaning is missing, we feel a void.

Oh, and now the scene is really set to look at uncovering our meaning. We are now ready to build the case for uncovering our meaning, slowly, very slowly, one step at a time, from here on in.

When you refer back to your daydreams on which previous imaginary activities were based, it’s important to uncover what lies underneath the dream: the undercurrent that inspired the daydream. We almost certainly always misinterpret our daydreams. We interpret them from our current frame of reference: from our Factor-x. We interpret them from things currently in and around our lives: From the current standards and norms of our society: from our Factor-x. Instead of the perspective of looking internally and basing what we do on our meaning.

Those things in and around our lives and our society are all likely based on us and society seeking to fill the hole of what we think is missing in our lives. So we aren’t aware that other aspects of our lives exist. Our society is also unaware that other aspects exist. We and society give to fill a void, and that is treating a symptom, instead of addressing the cause, that we do whatever we being based on our meaning and values.

Our society is made up of individuals like ourselves. Our society is not something “out there” (as the cliché goes). We are part of our society.

Our society is part of us. We feed our society, and our society feeds us. So if a vital flaw indeed exists—that we feel something missing in our lives is missing, and attempt to fill it with external stimuli—then that same flaw is perpetuated from our society to us, and back again to society.

The cycle locks us in, and we have no say in and over our lives while we don’t see the flaw in our lives and in our society. And this is handed down to us, as seen in the section titled, “Factor-x and How It Comes About.” This cycle needs changing. We need to mature our psyche. We mature the psyche of our society by our activities reflecting that we’re living our meaning.

So when we look for guidance from our role models—parents, teachers, professors, bosses, government, ministers, churches, religious leaders, as seen in “Forms of Crutches”—they are likely unable to give us the guidance for us to uncover ourselves, to uncover our meaning. They too are caught up in the cycle of looking externally for something to fill an emptiness inside them—an emptiness that can’t be filled, because it doesn’t exist in the way that filling it will take it away.

So what are you to do? It seems there is nothing to do that fills the emptiness, or that addresses the feeling that something is missing. It seems to look at our society for guidance won’t help either. It seems we are all doomed.

This isn’t so. We aren’t doomed, and we’re indeed fortunate when we get to the stage of seeing what exactly is happening in our lives and around us.

We need to find a way to unlock our meaning. Society needs to find a way so that through each individual we live our meaning.

Misinterpreting Our Daydreams

There’s only one thing left for you and I to do, and that is look at why the emptiness exists. Why the feeling exists that something is missing from our lives. Why the feeling exists that our lives seemingly don’t have meaning. Why our meaning is missing.

We can start by looking at our daydreams.

Our daydreams have an undercurrent on which they are based. We can look at that undercurrent to see what our daydreams are really about. By moving your existing standards and norms to one side, you can get a glimpse of yourself without your frame of reference or the standards and norms imprinted on you by society and by your Factor-x. We do this to see whether our meaning is missing or present.

Daydreams: Misinterpretation and Undercurrent” elaborates on this with an example of misinterpreting a daydream from the perspective of society’s standards and norms and Factor-x, rather than from the perspective of the undercurrent of the dream. It also expounds on uncovering the undercurrent of the same daydream.

This is not as easy as it sounds, though. Your standards and norms, your frame of reference, and your Factor-x will kick and scream and not let you move it aside. Nevertheless, to see our meaning this is imperative. So you’d need to quiet yourself, as seen in “Creating an Inner Calm,” and then observe and be brave and collect all the courage you can muster to be more honest than you’ve ever been with yourself to acknowledge what you see and experience—to observe and acknowledge what you uncover. This is required to acknowledge whether our meaning is present or not.

This, again, is easier said than done. As mentioned, everything in us will kick and scream and resist us moving aside our standards and norms and our Factor-x. Remember, to move aside your frame of reference, your standards and norms, and your Factor-x goes against the grain of everything in your life as you know it. Our meaning is elusive – and we’re not easily swayed that we are exactly fine and okay as we are.

A way you can get past your standards and norms and Factor-x is to not become entangled in what you uncover, and to at least acknowledge what you uncover—to flow with whatever you unearth about yourself, irrespective of how “weak the signal strength” of what you uncover. Later, you can assess what you encountered, and let the signal strength of what you uncover from your inner self grow so you grow. So our meaning has a chance to germinate.

Be forewarned that every time we question or fight what we see and uncover, the flow of what our inner self exposes to us stops in its tracks. The movie stops, in other words.

The best we can do is to acknowledge what we uncover . . . just let it be, let it flow, and observe without interfering by engaging in what is exposed, but taking absolute care to see and acknowledge and take in what is being exposed to us by our inner selves. In this way, by letting your inner self inform you and letting the information flow, you stand a chance to observe the undercurrent of your dreams. This way we observe our own meaning and values.

But be aware that allowing this uncovering to just happen isn’t easy, especially at first. You might just acknowledge and accept what you uncover about yourself. You’re just as likely to shoo it out as you would a stray animal wandering into your campsite. It requires that we are brave to accept our meaning.

Dissecting Your Daydreams

If you observe what you experience while you observe your daydreams, and slow down your daydreams and your experiences (as seen in “Reliving the Moment to Uncover Its Importance”), like with the frames that make up a movie, you can look at each frame one at a time to feel what you feel, thereby feeling what is exposed by the experience of your daydreams—from its undercurrent exposed from your inner self, so we expose our meaning.

And if you don’t quite feel anything, then you can slow the movie even further. In between each frame in the movie of your daydream are more frames. And in between those frames are even more frames, and so on.

Our minds contain such frames as those making up a movie, frames by the millions. Once we get the knack of dissecting those frames, like looking at movie frames one at a time, we can slow down the daydream or any experience to the point where we can make sense of their undercurrent.

In this case, you want to determine the undercurrent of each of your daydreams to see them for what they are—without any interpretation, without thinking, just feeling. This needs an open mind . . . open beyond our frame of reference . . . open beyond our standards and norms . . . open beyond our Factor-x. To experience our meaning, we need to trust ourselves and the process.

Understanding Your Daydreams

As opposed to accepting what we uncover about ourselves, when we uncover the undercurrent of our daydreams, we are likely to find these aspects. We’re now into the territory of seeing our meaning.

The first is this: From the undercurrent of the daydream you now presumably see, you just don’t accept what you uncover about yourself. It just can’t be, you think, or It’s unbelievable. When we encounter our meaning, it is indeed unbelievable.

The second is this: What are you to make of it; what are you to do about it? Being exposed to our meaning is almost too big for us to fathom.

The third is this: You don’t believe you can do anything with or about it. After all, you think, who am I? I’m just too insignificant. Our meaning is elusive because of this phenomenon.

And fourth: Where would you get . . . the know-how . . . the finances . . . the resources to manifest yourself? Unbelievably tough to accept our meaning.

These are usual and understandable apprehensions. Up to this point in your life, you likely had a very different outlook and understanding of yourself. Now suddenly, you’re exposed to a different outlook and a different meaning. Very definitely a scary prospect. But not only scary. Up to now and for some time to come, your Factor-x is likely dominant in your life. Now you’re faced with something new to you: something so different, and something that requires you to look past what you likely know, past the standards and norms of society, and past your Factor-x. Not for the fainthearted. And the beginning of living our meaning, though stuttering at first.

Nevertheless, by acknowledging what you uncovered, and with patience and getting to understand yourself, over time it might become easier and easier to see what you’re about. You might possibly even develop the courage to go for what you want with your life. To us living based on our meaning.

Oh, and then there is Factor-x. With such an overbearing drive from our Factor-x, it’s virtually impossible to acknowledge, never mind accept that we could set out to achieve with our lives what we uncover as the undercurrent of our daydreams. As mentioned, we might think to ourselves, After all, who am I? And then, with what our society’s standards and norms and our frame of reference and our Factor-x dictate to us, we’re likely to go diametrically opposite in our views and understanding.

Your Own Meaning and Direction

With whatever you encounter as the undercurrent of your dreams, you’re likely to go into a different direction with your life. This would almost certainly require finances and resources you might not have. Again, what are you to do? Living our meaning hasn’t been in the equation of our thinking up to now.

It’s actually very simple. We take small steps. One small step at a time. We take steps cutting out the things in our lives that we don’t want there, adjusting our lives so that our “Yes” is indeed yes, and our “No” is indeed no. Again, if we have the courage, we’ll take those steps. And with each step, our meaning unfolds.

If we lack the courage, we’ll stay where we are and look for ways to justify to ourselves why we can’t and shouldn’t take those steps. And that would be that. Living our lives without our meaning.

For those of us with the courage of our convictions, who can move forward and can take the steps, irrespective of how scary the step seems, we will encounter several crossroads. As we get beyond the crossroads, as we get to know ourselves better and our confidence grows, we’ll find that some steps are easier to take, and others extremely difficult. And rest assured when the steps are difficult, it’s usually because of some debris from your Factor-x that is making it too scary for you to move forward.

And then, there are steps you’ll take that won’t work out. In those cases, you’ll need to backpedal and find your path again, as if on a journey and getting lost along the way. Yet when you look carefully and backtrack your steps, you’re likely to see where you lost the pathway. Forward or backward, no step taken is wasted, and all of them add to your experiences and add to us living our meaning.

On the point of finances and resources: These are very scary prospects indeed. And you might feel like you have lived for so many years now, and likely feel that was time wasted, and now want to rush. And as many people say of themselves, they are too impatient and want it now.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. You’ll soon see that nothing along your natural path, the path of our meaning, can be rushed. It has a timing and rhythm of its own. You can only take the steps for which you have resources, financial or otherwise. No matter what you do or want or expect, you can’t do more than you have resources for.

However, you can make a plan to get from where you are to where you want to go. Here, you might feel that where you’d like to go with your life might take forever: a month, a year, two years or even five or ten years. Again, it might even look as if it’ll take forever.

That doesn’t matter; your path is your path. Your resources are your resources. It is merely a matter of realizing where you want to go. Acknowledging that it’s your own path, and about your own meaning, you’re likely to notice every now and then that you would check and recheck your journey, and even reorganize your plan. And as your confidence grows and as you gain experience in your new life, you’ll notice that you’ll even add things to your plan, or take things away and reorganize your plan and shorten your plan, and then lengthen your plan, and vice versa.

Notwithstanding any of this, it is your plan, it’s your way of life, and you will get to the destination whenever you get there. And the getting there, thus the journey, is all part of your newly found life—your life based on your meaning.

Be aware, observe. You might notice that you have your life on hold during the journey, and are holding your breath, so to speak, until you get there. Be warned, that doesn’t work. Live the journey. The journey is all part and parcel of your path based on your meaning. If you’re not living the journey, you’re off-track and not enjoying your journey. As a result, you’ll experience frustration and more, as seen in the section titled, “Expectations: Frustration, Anger and Irritation.”

So you uncovered the undercurrent of your dream and now you want to implement that, but it turns out to be a massive project and you don’t have the necessary resources to manifest yourself. What are you to do? As mentioned, take one small step at a time. Plan and re-plan, remembering that each step we take is the manifestation of ourselves—our meaning, the undercurrent of our daydreams.

Some of us, reading these points about uncovering our meaning, will not be able to manifest ourselves. Others will. And some of us will go with manifesting themselves, and others won’t. Using marketing terms, some of us would be leaders and others followers. The leaders will uncover their meaning and go with it—manifest themselves. The followers will uncover their meaning and not go for it—not manifest themselves. The latter group will wait for the leadertypes to go for it, and when the leaders establish unconventional organizations that the followers can join—where the followers would be in a position to manifest themselves as independent individuals—they will then join and manifest themselves.

And here, “leader” doesn’t necessarily mean one person leading someone else. No. It merely means taking a lead by uncovering our meaning and going for it and manifesting ourselves. Like when something new comes onto the market. The leader-type people would see the value of this piece or service or product and go for it. Others would only go with it later on, more or less when everyone else is doing it.

If you are unable to uncover the undercurrent of your daydreams, make contact with me via the accompanying website, Peace Evolution (Contact Me NOW) (formerly Life Can Be Different), to explore finding such undercurrent.

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Bibliography

Bibliography

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