{"id":729,"date":"2010-08-03T10:11:05","date_gmt":"2010-08-03T17:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/?p=729"},"modified":"2010-08-03T10:11:05","modified_gmt":"2010-08-03T17:11:05","slug":"meaning-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/?p=729","title":{"rendered":"Meaning What"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dearest Readers,<\/p>\n

When I landed home over the weekend after two months away I found a big pile of The New Yorker<\/em> magazine waiting for me. My father gave me a subscription a couple of Christmases ago and after my initial anxiety over the frequency of their arrival (“How am I ever going to read <\/em>them all?”) I soon became hooked.<\/p>\n

In the May 31st issue there is an article on the great writer Somerset Maugham<\/a> who is most well-known for his novels Of Human Bondage<\/em> and The Razor’s Edge<\/em>, neither of which I have read. I recall reading one of his short stories in university but I don’t remember its title. His name, however, has stayed with me.<\/p>\n

The writer of the NY<\/em> article writes that the protagonist in Of Human Bondage <\/em>discovers “that life has no meaning other than what one makes of it.” I found this very interesting. It’s kind of like the old riddle “when a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?”<\/p>\n

If we were not here to experience Life, would It have any meaning? Without us, without the human experience, is there any meaning to anything at all?<\/p>\n

In my own search for meaning I’ve often thought that we exist in order for Existence to know Itself. Hmmm, I might be getting a little too deep for a Tuesday morning. Let’s go back to the quote.<\/p>\n

“Life has no meaning other that what one makes of it.”<\/p>\n

If I believe Life is meaningless, it will be. I’ve tried the Way of No Meaning. It doesn’t feel very good. Conversely, if I believe Life has<\/em> meaning then I will come to experience Its Meaning in All Manner of Things. This, too, I have tried. It not only works, it makes Life worth living.<\/p>\n

It’s a rather simple formula, isn’t it? Much more suited to a Tuesday morn.<\/p>\n

Inspiring Message of the Day:<\/strong><\/em> “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things <\/em> shall be well.” ~ Julian of Norwich<\/a><\/p>\n


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Dearest Readers, When I landed home over the weekend after two months away I found a big pile of The New Yorker magazine waiting for me. My father gave me a subscription a couple of Christmases ago and after my initial anxiety over the frequency of their arrival (“How am I ever going to read…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[532,816,325,530,533,817,529,280,531],"class_list":["post-729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-if-a-tree-falls-in-the-forest","tag-inspiration","tag-inspiring-message-of-the-day","tag-julian-of-norwich","tag-mans-search-for-meaning","tag-motivation","tag-somerset-maugham","tag-the-new-yorker","tag-the-razors-edge-of-human-bondage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":730,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions\/730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}