Posted: 6 months ago

I would like to open a thread here about "meaning" in the 21st century since my whole program this week was about the "searching" and only some threads about the "finding". Several of the comments on this week's program went something like this: "What did the program mean?" If a had a definative answer, I would never have written an essay that is titled "Searching for Meaning in a Seemingly Meaningless World". The essay did what my mentor, Robert Frost, did in his poetry: he 'left holes so that anyone could put themselves in the work'. I left holes since I was searching. I wanted to tell about the search, not the find. It is up to each of us to find.

This week I was finishing my Fall college class on Art Appreciation. We had started the class in the history of the past, gone to the present by searching all over Houston for architectural pieces (a head fake, since what I wanted the students to do was discover and see where they lived- history of the past was finding the use of the pieces, like Roman and Gothic arches, keystones, Greek orders of columns, etc., which were only passing information, not permanent meaning), and finally, in this last lecture, explore the future. I viewed over 100 Youtube presentations. If you wish to join this hunt for meaning, here are some sources on Youtube: The Jensen Project of Strandbeests-3 min., The Venus Project-Designs for the Future-6 min., and just to bring my students back to where they like: The Houston World Famous Beer Can House (1:32 min.) and the Houston Art Car Parade (3:42 min.). When all this viewing was done, I said: "We have viewed ten selected programs from my research of Youtube about the future, but that was another head fake. What the future is in not what we viewed because they were only possible content elements for what tomorrow will look like as a context. The future is you! Go into little groups of five and discuss what you got from this course, what you can use in the present and what you will store to use in the future!"

This was the best class that I have had all year (although I did not participate in their group discussion because I did not have to, since they had to write out what they came in with, what they got in the present and what they will use in the future). The search for 'meaning' we can all share; the ultimate finding some distination of 'meaning' is an individual adventure, which when found can be shared too.

ONE OF MY MANTRAS THAT I GIVE THE STUDENTS AT THE BEGINNING OF ANY COURSE I TEACH IS: "FIRST YOU SHOOT THE ARROWS AND THEN YOU PAINT THE TARGETS." In the 21st century, searching for meaning is 'shooting the arrows'; whereas finding 'meaning' is our individual targets (because the society is the ultimate context and we are the content but that may be a 'head fake' too since the roles change as the individual grows).

For those Rotarians who have found 'meaning' in their own way, please share it here for others who are still searching (in fact, I think that I will be searching for the next level of meaning when I reach a plateau of 'knowledge about meaning').

Posted: 6 months ago

Julie Bolton stated, "I can't for the life of me see what the teeth represents." Welllllllll, they represent teeth. OK, once you accept that, you go to the second level. What is the context of the teeth? It is the image that one sees in a dentist's office over and over again. It is always open mouths, not closed, showing the intimate inside of a doorway to our inner self. Once I looked long enough to see this, I asked myself, "Why do some of these open mouths look like the opening to a Egyptian tomb?" And once you reach that plateau, the open mouth can become a symbol for anything that you wish to open: minds, hearts, architecture, ideas, the inner self of others, etc. Even my dentist saw his own illustration of "open wide" with new eyes. Once you view the teeth as the guardians of this inner chamber, this inner architectural opening to the physical and spiritual 'self', you open your mind and your mind's inner eye to all kinds of openings.

The teeth were a doorway to opening my artistic mind to other possibilities. Do they represent that to everyone? No, only to me, but I was the one dong the collage painting. What the total essay did, I hope, is open some doorways in other's minds so that they could find personal meaning (in, as I said, "a seemingly meaningless world"). It is not important what the teeth mean to me but what they can open for others viewing them. Not many people have really looked hard at this image (since many feel that it is gross to see people open their mouths wide and show their teeth), but I just see it as an image that can be used to open other doors in my mind and mind's eye. Meaning, for me, is personal, not just societal.