Faith

I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

The future exists only in our imaginations. Despite our best predictive efforts, we cannot truly know what the quality of the next moment will be. There is no actual future, thus future circumstances can be neither true nor false. This is where faith comes in.

Have you ever heard someone suggest to you that the way you think creates your world? Perhaps this idea is an important part of your life, or perhaps it is new to you and you are just now reading about it for the first time. Often referred to as the Law of Attraction, the idea is that you will attract into your reality the kinds of things that you focus on in your thoughts. While there is a great deal more nuance to this than one might first suppose, the basic gist of it is that if you focus on the unpleasant things, the struggle and strife, then your life will be full of struggle and strife. If you stay focused on the glorious and beautiful things, your life will be a thing of great beauty. Now, in this post, I am not going to go in-depth into analyzing this theory, but it is certainly not lacking in basis. The workshops I teach go more into its application, and you can read an entry where I explore the mechanics of the power of conscious direction of thought here. My reason for bringing it up now is to suggest that there is an artistry to our conscious experience in this world. The way we think about things is indeed important, and it has repercussions. The Buddha contemplates this when in the Dvedhavitakka he says, "Whatever you frequently think and ponder upon, that will become the inclination of your mind."

The type of thinking I am going to explore here can be expressed as a set of questions: What happens when we have the sense that our future is secure? What happens when we tell ourselves that everything happens for a reason? What happens when we say we are exactly where we are meant to be at this moment? What happens when we have faith?

When I was a student in a Tae Kwon Do dojo, I considered becoming an instructor at one point. Our master once told those of us assembled in an instructor training course that from his perspective, having us be responsible for teaching newer students is like taking a gamble--except the dice are loaded because he knows who we are. He knew the deck he was playing with. Thus, he said, it is not actually a gamble, because it is not left to pure chance.

In the modern way of speaking, faith is typically defined as "complete confidence or trust in something for which there is no proof or evidence." An interesting thing about faith is that while it is a disposition situated in the present, faith also regards the future. The thing about the future is that it is not a thing that we have any evidence for, since it is not a thing that has happened. The root of the word "faith" comes from the Proto-Indo-European "*bheidh," which means "to trust, confide, persuade." Faith is indeed a kind of trusting. That sense of "trusting" is what people have in mind when they say to "have faith in yourself." The greatest faith is a pervasive faith, which trusts in everything. Faith is not necessarily involved with religion, and in fact, an atheist could participate in faith just as well as a devout fundamentalist. Atheism and fundamentalism are both examples of beliefs, and faith is quite a different thing from belief.

I think it would be apt to differentiate faith from belief, as nowadays faith is often associated with belief, even though this is not a necessary association. Belief is an acceptance that something is true. If we look at the etymology of the word "belief," we find it is connected, through Old High German "*galaub," meaning "dear, esteemed," to the Proto-Indo-European root "*leubh," which means "to care, desire, love." It looks like this very old concept out of which our word "belief" evolved still has some relevance today; for indeed, if you look at the intense reaction most people have when their beliefs come into question, it seems quite apparent that they hold these beliefs in very high esteem. Many of us are attached to our beliefs--especially the deep-seated ones.

It looks like while faith and belief both have something to do with trust, they differ in their implications. Belief is trust or confidence that things are a certain way--it is confidence in the truth of a proposition. Faith, on the other hand, is trusting in the way things are, and thus, in the way things will go, and it has nothing to do with what is true or false. But there does seem to be something of love in both faith and belief, for a key feature of love is the way in which it accepts the beloved. The believer fully accepts as true the subject of the belief. The acceptance of the faithful is not necessarily in regard to what is true or false. Faith accepts the unknowable forthcoming future. There is a place for both faith and belief in our lives, but I find that faith is a much more profound and enlightening thing to engage with. Indeed, faith is itself lighter by nature, because it is open to all of possibility. A lover must by definition have a beloved: and so, we might identify the beloved of the believer as truth. The beloved of the faithful is fate. Belief is a singular and focused "yes" to a claim that something is true. Faith is an open and universal "Yes" to life--a life which incudes fate. Love of fate, amor fati, is the disposition Nietzsche reflects about in the quote with which I open this post. (Nietzsche is not talking about faith in the above quote, but it seems to me that his attitude was faithful when writing it.) Faith is not a belief in things being a certain way; but rather, it is a sense of things playing out in a perfect way.

John Vervaeke, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, seems to agree with me insofar as defining faith as a sense of things, rooted in the present, which regards the future. In his lecture series, "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis", he says, "In ancient israel, faith didn't mean "believing ridiculous things for which there is no evidence. That is a recent idea. That is not what it meant"..."Faith was your sense that you're in this reciprocal realization--you're in course. You're on course. You're involved and evolving with things. It's your sense [sic] 'ah! I'm on course', or even 'ah! this is the turning point! I know what to do! I know who I need to change in to. I know how to turn myself in things.''" I think the way he describes it brings some nice clarity, as the word is indeed nowadays often bogged down by associations with religion and belief that take away from its real value and significance. When you say that "everything happens for a reason," you are agreeing to participate in a reciprocal realization. You are accepting that each moment offers an opportunity to evolve into the person you are. The idea of being on course is an acknowledgement of the inevitability of becoming.

Our capability of predicting the future is entirely based on our knowledge in the present. The place we find ourselves now is a product of fate and our concerted efforts. Intentions develop into actions, and actions are a part of our reality--but not the whole of it. However much we may know of what cards are in the deck, there still remains the unknowable nature of the hand that is dealt. There are those who believe that a supreme being is dealing these cards, there are those who believe that these cards are dealt entirely at random, and there is a whole spectrum of people believing something in-between. Faith is a sense that the hand that we will be dealt is the hand that is right for us, whoever or whatever the dealer may be. As I have indicated above, faith is closely intertwined with fate. Our fate is the lot we are dealt. The fact that you were born where you were born, and that you cannot change that fact, is an example of fate.

The current usage of the word fate denotes "the development of events outside a person's control." Fate is often associated with a supernatural power or entity, such as God or gods. But whether you believe in God or not, what is true is that there is some aspect of our lives that we do not have any control over. This is our fate. The etymology of the word "fate" is really quite fascinating. From Latin "fata" we find the meaning of "one's lot or destiny." Yet this is a modification of an older and more pure Latin word, "fatum," which is a "prophetic declaration of what must be," and in a literal sense, "a thing spoken by the gods." The farthest back we can trace the meaning of this word is to the Proto-Indo-European root "*bha," which means "to speak." The association often made nowadays between fate and "the will of God" is not a new one, and it seems to me that it is no coincidence--all we need to do to see this is look past the Latin to the older Greek language. Homer, when writing about fate, at times associated it with the work of the gods. The ancient greek word "μόρος" (pronounced "moros"), that we translate as fate, came from the word "μείρομαι" ("pronounced "meíromai"), meaning "to receive as one's portion." μόρος also can be translated as "death," which has been seen since time immemorial as the inescapable fate of every mortal being. In Hesiod's mythology, Moros is the brother of the three Fates. The New Testament was written by Greeks, and surely its authors were influenced by earlier Greek cultural ideas connecting fate with the work of the divine when they conceived of things as being part of some sort of divine order. The first line of the Gospel according to John in the New Testament goes "In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

And yet, as a word may be spoken by "God," so may we speak a word in response. If someone does not like the place they were born, they can typically move somewhere else. If someone does not like the name they were given, they can typically change their name. But someone falling off of a cliffside probably cannot stop falling in mid-air and choose to start floating up instead--at least not in any normal circumstances. The response that accepts the uncontrollable is faith. Now this is not to say that faith is rolling over and accepting all that may come. For we have a great deal of power and influence over the present. Faith is not giving up all power; but rather, it is the disposition where, upon recognizing the limits of our vast power, we keep our eyes open and smile. Que sera, sera: What will be, will be.

Trust and confidence ought not to be given foolishly, but with an awareness of what is. When trusting in this way, the greater our awareness of the present, the greater becomes our faith, and the greater becomes the power behind it. In this same vein, when my Tae Kwon Do Master trusted in us, this faith of his was well-placed, because he knew that in which he was trusting. I may not have gone on to be a Tae Kwon Do instructor, but my master's words have stuck with me to this day. One might say I was meant to be there.

It is a curious proposition to say "I am exactly where I am meant to be right now," and yet saying such a thing with sincerity can provoke a deep feeling of serenity. When saying something was meant to happen, or things are the way they should be, it need not be thought of as a literal statement of fact or belief. Rather, such a statement expresses a feeling of faith. When faced with reality, we can certainly act within our capabilities to move things in the direction we seek, but even in exerting our will, it is still possible to do so with the faithful disposition. 

Often, I have heard the advice to have hope for the future, and I think it would be helpful right now to distinguish between hope and faith. After all, they both seem like positive outlooks, and yet they have very different implications. Hope looks to the future, and stays focused on it. It is a "trust that things will be so." Hope anticipates the hand of cards and says, "please let it be a royal flush." Hope may have some influence on our attitudes and lifestyes, but it is a mere echo of true faith, which, rooted in the present, has much more bearing on what happens now. Hope always sets us up for disappointment--however unknowable may be the potential as to whether disappointment will or will not come--because the nature of any kind of future expectation is that the ensuing reality tends to differ from it. Faith, on the other hand, protects us from disappointment, because it is an attitude that embraces what comes, whatever that may be.

Faith is one of the most powerful things we can have in our lives, because it supports a framework of reality that empowers positive creation. Hope can make us unhinged, because it looks to the future and wishes for things to be a certain way. In its yearning, hope has a propensity to cause us to be attached to possible future outcomes. Faith, on the other hand, rests in the present and senses that everything will work out the way it is meant to, and its effect is thus the opposite of attachment: true faith is letting go.

I think this attitude of letting go in the face of an unknowable future is why people often use the metaphor of "taking a leap of faith." (Artwork is "Leap of Faith" by Victor Bregeda.)

When we have faith, we become more powerful, because even the most devastating of life circumstances can be interpreted as a part of the constant unfolding of a universe that is just as it is. Think about if you were to make a major change in your life, such as a change in your career path, or asking someone to start dating. Of course, you don't know how things will go. What does it feel like if you hope things will work out? What does it feel like if you have faith that things will work out? The choices we make in how we think about things make a difference.

While hope depends on the illusion of time, (and is thus itself an illusion), through faith we can actually be freed from the bonds of temporality; because by being in faith, we no longer worry about controlling an illusory future. Now, I am not going to say we should never indulge in hope, nor do I think that hope is without its benefits. But I find hope to be dramatically inferior to faith. Hope makes a difference, but faith makes a radical difference.

Faith is not without its risks. Blind faith can be as bad as hubris. Blind faith is the extreme of putting all of one's power in the hands of fate. Hubris is the extreme of trying to change one's fate. To follow the falling off a cliff example from earlier: an example of blind faith is letting yourself go over a cliff that you could have avoided by correcting your course, because you have faith that you will fall in the way that is best for you, even if that proves to be fatal. An example of hubris is jumping off the avoidable cliff because you think you can overcome gravity by sheer force of will.

I think, rather than leaping off of a cliff, a better metaphor for engaging in faith is a dancer who trusts that their body will know what to do in the next moment. (Artwork is "Faith" by Marie Frances.)

While it is good to have a mentality that seeks to surpass limitations, when taken to an excess, this mentality can prove rather unhealthy indeed. Similarly, faith, when well-placed, is life-changing and quite liberating, but when taken to excess, can lead to unreasonable decisions.

When you say "everything happens for a reason," whether the reason was preordained by a supernatural entity or is a reason that you came up with on your own, this statement is an expression of faith. The novice faithful will need to take some effort to find the reason in certain events, especially the traumatic or unwanted ones. Those experienced in faith will see the reasons as a second nature. When truly faithful, we can be fully open to the lessons that the universe offers for us to learn, even in the most trying of times. Faith allows us to pull out of the pattern of defining circumstances as good or bad, and by breaking this cycle, we can free ourselves up to breathe new life into the reality we face. When trouble comes around, or a mighty task that demands a great deal of responsibility leers around the corner, the attitude we have is important. We can so easily give in to frustration and even despair, but what we don't often evaluate is if that kind of thinking is something we have made into a habit. I find that having faith is a much more effective and empowering train of thought to get into the habit of. It is the truly faithful who "walk with God," and to them may inspiration most readily come.

May we not roll over and be beaten about by the waves of destiny like a limp and feckless clump of seaweed. Yet let us also not struggle in vain against an overpowering current, spending all of our energy in a pointless battle. No--let us instead ride upon the waves, borne by a plank as solid as our deep-seated love. Let us ride above the current--yet ride it still with a mind to its incomprehensible power--and in this balanced dance of giving in and pushing out, we may find that space to breathe and say "Yes" to the infinity of possiblity, the reality of the world where we stand, and our boundless potential for creativity within it. Let this be our sacred "Yes."

Neglect, Choices, Elegance

What does it mean to neglect something? It comes from the Latin word neclegere, which in a literal sense means not to pick something up. To not pick something up is to leave it lying there. In the sense in which we use "neglect" nowadays, we mean something along the lines of "to be indifferent to," "to disregard." That which is neglected is something that one doesn't trouble oneself with. It is not cared for. If a thing is neglected, one does not enjoy oneself with it, nor do anything with it at all for that matter.

Considered in this literal sense, the opposite of neglecting something is picking it up and holding it. The opposite of neglect is care and present usage. We can also look at the literal etymological root of "neglect" and consider it figuratively without stretching it too far, as we often talk about holding something in one's mind, or letting it drop off. The thoughts we neglect are the thoughts we have forgotten, that have dropped off and don't come to mind.

To pick something up, (i.e. to use it, practice it, or even occupy one's thoughts with it), one must give it their attention, and in so doing, something else gets set aside, or even dropped. This is because we only have so many hands to hold things with, and only so much time in the day to care for them or use them. Even someone with a hundred hands could still only hold a hundred things, and the catch is always that a hundred other things are left lying around. There is only so much time in a day before we have to sleep, and only so much space that can be used in a room before things have to get put in a closet. When we set up our spaces, we choose the things that will stay out on the tables and get dusted off now and again, and some things will wind up in the closets, gathering dust, neglected.

For the sake of this entry, I am more interested in the figurative sense of neglect. For instance, it is not uncommon for someone to say, "I have been neglecting playing this instrument." I sometimes say "I have been neglecting my writing," or more specifically, "I have been neglecting this blog post I was intending to finish." When we talk about neglecting a practice, neglect means falling out of practice, usually for a while. Maybe something we used to do every day, we now only do once a week, or once a month. Truly neglecting something would be fully forgetting it, but often we still notice the things we neglect, like the bookshelf you've been meaning to dust off for months but haven't gotten around to. Potential in something may still be noticed, yet there it lays, untouched.

Just as neglect is indifference, being fully engaged in a practice or habit is to be interested in it, caring for it in some way. But indifference doesn't have to be permanent—most of the time we can pick these things back up. Getting re-accustomed to a practice may require some time, like the fingers remembering effective placement over the holes or strings on an instrument. To be fully enjoyed, an old neglected object will likely require some dusting off. But for one who has played an instrument enough times, even if it's been a very long time, the fingers will remember where to go more easily than they would if trying something completely new. The table in a corner with some objects that have not been wiped in so long that they begin collecting dust is not as neglected as the box in the corner of the basement that may not have been picked up for years. The table is easier to dust off, but both can be dusted.

We can also talk about leaving a habit behind, which in a way is a kind of neglect. If a continued practice can become a habit, we can neglect the habit as we can neglect a practice. After all, we commonly use the phrase "I picked up this habit." Of course, some things take more will to pick up, while others are easy. Some things we don’t see ourselves as neglecting because we think they are better off being left to lie. For example, smoking cigarettes is an easy habit to pick up, but you never hear someone who hasn’t smoked in a while say they have been neglecting smoking, or neglecting their cigarettes. On the other hand, going to the gym requires a lot of will to get into for most people, and people will often feel they have neglected working out if they miss a few days or a week of going. But if we can sensibly use the word "neglect" to refer to our habits, from here it’s not such a stretch to say that one who has stopped using some addictive substance has neglected his or her appetite for that. They have become indifferent to it—they have dropped it. In this strange way of bending the usage of a word, “neglect,” there might be a bit of truth in saying something like that.

But again, habits are like objects—there are only so many one can hold onto at once. In picking something up and holding on to it so as to use it and be with it, one is always neglecting other things. In picking up a cigarette habit, I could be neglecting looking after my lung capacity, or paying attention to the complaints of my throat after smoking one too many. In still smoking more, I am neglecting the ideal of being as healthy as I can be, in favor of satisfying a certain appetite. If someone goes to the gym regularly, through the duration of being at the gym, they are passing on the chance to sit around and read or play games, or smoke cigarettes for that matter. It is interesting to take the literal sense of neglect and bend it to consider mutually exclusive concepts.

Because there is a limit to how much we can literally practice, care for, and hold on to, there is an art to deciding what will end up being neglected. Since we choose the things we hold on to and those which we neglect, there can be elegance in the way one spends one's time, in the habits one chooses to occupy oneself. It is like how when we set up a room, some things get displayed on the tables, while others get put in boxes in the closet, and the decisions as to what gets displayed and neglected make up one's style—and almost everyone who goes through this process sets up their room with their own peculiar sense of elegance. Indeed, our word "elegance" comes from the Latin word "eligere," which literally means "select with care, choose," and comes from the same root as our word "elect."

Being humans, with bodies of particular structures, it just so happens to be that we can only hold on to so many things at once. Existing in a single place in space, we can only do so much at once, And existing for a limited span of time, there is only so much in total that we can do. So it goes, and so it is not an uncommon experience for someone to reflect on the past from where they stand today and think of how much has changed, and how much may seem to have been lost. For example, someone might say, "I remember when as I child, I used to love dinosaurs and wanted to be a paleontologist. How I have neglected that passion in my adolescence and adulthood!" But this is the consequence of choosing among our limitations, and if someone could do literally everything at the same time, it would be quite impressive, and perhaps even tantamount to godhood, but it would certainly not be elegant. Perhaps that is one of the gifts of mortality and limitation—it necessitates the potential for elegance.

As we can talk about neglecting habits and practices, we can also talk about neglecting certain thoughts, and certain frames of consciousness. In every moment we live, we are thinking one thought or another. How often do you repeat the same thought throughout the day—day in and day out? (Bearing in mind the uniqueness of every given moment in which we exist, is it ever really the same thought?) If we think in phrases and words, those words can be repeated an immense amount of times throughout the day. If we think in images, those images can be envisioned repeatedly. "I am going to do this tomorrow." How many days will someone think this thought before they actually find themself doing the thing they thought about doing?

We can think about this in terms of our values as well—the habits and practices we value, and the thoughts and images we value. To return to the example given above, the choice between spending the night reading and smoking cigarettes, or spending the night at the gym, can also be thought of as a choice between the values of pleasurable relaxation or healthy physical activity. One cannot always satisfy both values simultaneously. Moving to a new pattern of valuation is leaving behind the old one. But it is always there waiting in the corner for you to return to it and pick it up again. Maybe, as some people hold on to smoking in lieu of healthier habits, some people hold on to thinking self-destructive and sabotaging thoughts in lieu of helpful and encouraging thoughts. It is true that the mind has a much greater capacity for holding on to various thoughts than hands do for holding on to various things. We only have two hands, but the mind can juggle an uncountable number of thoughts in a very short span of time—but this time is still limited.

In the space of a moment, there is only one thought that can be thought at that given time—but a short span of time can be divided into nearly infinite moments. How do we hold and care for ourselves, and what thought-patterns do we hold on to? Moment after moment passes, and maybe those productive, encouraging thoughts have been neglected, as a series of moments became a very long time. That which is neglected and tarnished, we can pick up and polish, and we can see it in a new way after it has been left for so long. Just like someone can start playing an instrument well that they once played, even if it has been neglected for a long time, and begin to make beautiful music again, so can we start thinking those helpful thoughts that bring us to the places we want to be, becoming the beautiful selves we have always had the potential of being. You can pick something up that is brand new. Can you pick something up that is old and look at it in a brand new way? Maybe you neglected it for so long, it began collecting dust. But that better version of yourself is waiting in the corner, ready to be uncovered, polished off, picked up, given a little bit of care, and held again.

A Practical Method of Applied Semiotics

"This species-specific primary modeling device, also called language, endows human beings (differently from other animals) with the special capacity to produce a great plurality of different worlds, real and imaginary. This means that human beings are not condemned to remain imprisoned in the world as it is, to forms of vulgar realism." (Susan Petrelli, Semioethics, subjectivity and communication. For the humanism of otherness, 20)

Ethics is the type of philosophy we are doing when we try to figure out what is right and wrong. Put succinctly, Ethics is figuring out how to act, and why. The semiotic endeavor wherein we seek to understand what we mean when we talk about doing the right thing is known as semioethics. To paraphrase the words of Petrelli, semioethics lies at the intersection of semiotics, ethics, and pragmatism. My work in developing a practical theory of semioethics has turned into something I call Applied Semiotics. The reason why I consider what I am proposing here to be a method of semioethics is because it is intended to be not just an aid in contemplation, but to be a process that sets us up for effective action, or at least allows us a space to evaluate our past actions. In other words, it is meant to be a practical and accessible application of semiotic thinking.

In doing a brief internet search, I have found others who do something or another they call "Applied Semiotics," but none of them seem to be exactly the same as what I am doing here, and I have not based this approach on any of these other things those people have been doing.

Some of these writers apply semiotics to "branding" and business applications, which could not be farther from what I am doing. Some journals are literally applying Semiotics across academic disciplines, and for that reason could be a bit inaccessible to those not disposed to academic discourse. These journals seem to present respectable bodies of work in themselves, but don't appear to be relevant to what I'm doing here in any explicit way. Distinct from these other writers, what I am doing in the system of Applied Semiotics I propose is attempting to apply semiotic thinking to experiences we undergo in our day-to-day lives, both on a personal basis and a basis of social interactions. I have experimented with this in my own day-to-day conversations and reflecting, and what I provide here is a general outline to help guide myself and others, particularly in a workshop setting. It is not a strict method to be followed verbatim, but rather a general guideline which welcomes deviations and ingenuity. I may revise this in the future, but I can say at this time that it is now in a state that I am comfortable publishing.

The only prerequisites that any person needs to be able to engage in this method are sincerity, patience, and a willingness to participate.

I am going to test this approach in my next few workshops and see how it works out. This outline is intended to be easily exercised by anyone in any conversation or personal contemplation, and the goal of this method is twofold:

A) So we can enrich our experience of meaning and thus understand ourselves and one another to our utmost capacity, allowing us to think and act more effectively.

B) So we can resolve conflict in a manner that does not just leave one winner and one loser, but rather in a way that leads us to a more complete understanding, where we come to a resolution that benefits everyone by stimulating us to become more conscious and thus more connected, by which means we evolve together.

The Method

I have outlined this method in four steps. I stopped at four because I found that to be the minimum amount of distinct steps to completely cover what I hope for us to be able to accomplish, while being a small enough number to stay simple and easy to remember:

1. Signs - What is the literal meaning? What is the meaning intended by the speaker? (Typically these will be words, as this takes place as a conversation. However we can consider other forms of signification as well.)

• Domain: Internal/Personal - Understanding
• Aided by: Etymology, denotation, current accepted usage, personal meanings to the speaker.

2. Empathy - What does it mean to the other? How is the meaning interpreted by the other? (In speaking of our capacity to do this, Robin Dunbar calls this Intentionality.)

• Domain: External/Mutual - Understanding 
• Aided by: Considering other's perspective, asking questions to learn of other's experience, imagining seeing through the other's eyes.

3. Impact - What does it mean in the bigger picture? What is the effect? Who does it affect?

• Domain: Internal/Personal - Assessing Implications
• Aided by: Listing consequences, considering implications, reviewing motives.

4. Collaboration - What meaning are we creating together? How do we build this world together?

• Domain: External/Mutual - Assessing Implications
• Aided by: Elaborating and sharing visions/ideals, creativity and building solutions, identifying where our ethics and motives intersect.

It would appear that a simple quadrant table can help in conceptualizing this method:

I didn't initially intend to categorize the steps in this kind of diagram, but as I was evaluating them, I noticed that they ended up fitting into this format quite naturally. 1 and 3 I consider internal because they are oriented towards individual reflection. They don't need to be exclusively personal, but they can be easily conducted without the aid of a conversation partner. On the other hand, 2 and 4 I call external because they are oriented towards a conversation with one or more people, even though it is not impossible to do them by oneself. While these do break down nicely into quadrants, I keep the numbering in this diagram because this method is intended to be followed step-by-step, with step 4 being the ideal situation we can arrive at, as it is the point at which we shift to a creative mindset where everyone is engaged. That collaborative fourth step serves as a springboard for us to begin taking action.

In individual self-reflection and mental health, 1 has the most bearing because the thinker is reflecting on their words and what they mean to themselves. Are meanings being used in the way they are most commonly used, or do words take on a new and unique meaning based on specific associations and experiences?

In one-on-one relationships,  2 has the most bearing because we strive to understand one another so that we may better relate. It is amazing what happens when we simply intend to understand each other before intending to do anything else.

When planning on an individual basis, 3 has the most bearing because we seek to consider the way we are affecting the world through what we are attempting. It is always worth taking a pause and asking ourselves if we have the complete picture, or only part of a bigger picture.

In social applications, 4 has the most bearing, because a social context is always about what we do together. 4 is the point at which, having come to our fullest understanding through the previous three steps, we can bring things back together. It is, in essence, synergy, conducted in a semiotic mindset.

Regardless of the situation where one may apply this method, it is possible to engage in all four steps. When I first came up with this outline, I was envisioning how I might conduct a workshop that is interactive for a sizeable group of people. I think this method is really intended for use in a conversation between at least two people. That being said, any one person might find some usefulness in conducting a cognitive exercise where they imagine a discourse with someone who has totally different views—though in doing so, one may be limited by one's own imagination.

Breaking it Down

Even if we cannot come to agree on the exact same values, (nor should we necessarily aim to do so, as our individual perspectives each offer something unique and valuable to this shared experience), we can, through some careful listening and directed effort, get a good sense of where our values can intersect. I think a good analogy for this method would be singing in a choir, or playing in a band. I'll stick with the choir analogy because a conversation involves people's voices: A choir is not comprised of everyone singing in unison, singing the exact same notes at the exact same tempo—if it were, it would be rather dull and uninteresting. What makes a good chorus so beautiful is the way that people sing various different parts, different notes, and different tempos, all harmoniously intersecting in a way that makes the whole even more beautiful than each individual part. Some people may indeed be singing the same part, so unison is not entirely out of the question for some period of time, but even for these parts, each singer sings it with their individual voice, style, and volume. In a choir, we tune ourselves and pay attention to if we are singing more or less quietly or loudly, each of us making concessions to not sing at our loudest and proudest, instead carefully listening to each other with an ear to the overarching beauty of the whole.

When we carefully listen to each other and come to be conscious of how we each interpret our experiences, the possibilities expand substantially. New solutions can come to mind that nobody would have been able to think of on their own. Rather than striving for a groupthink or herd mentality, this approach allows each person to hold to their individual values and needs, making it a fitting template for a discourse that acknowledges (and perhaps even thrives on) intersectionality.

Resolve (as a verb) is a word that means "settle or find a solution to." If we look at the etymology of the word, we see it comes from the Latin word "resolvere," which meant "to loosen, loose, unyoke,", "to set free," "to relax," and in some contexts "to dispel." (Looking at it in terms of semiotics, one might say we unyoke the yoking our concepts have imposed upon us. One might also say we dispel the spells our words have cast over us.) The sense of "to loosen" and "to cut apart" can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European root "*leu-". Interestingly, our modern word "analysis" can also be traced back to this ancient linguistic root.

To use another analogy, consider a context to be a tapestry, i.e. an assembly of threads, with the threads being the meaningful aspects or signs that comprise the whole meaningfulness of a situation, which would be the tapestry. (I did not come up with this myself, as the etymology of the word "context" shows us that it originally came from roots "con-" and "*teks" which literally say "to weave together."). When we seek a resolution to a problematic situation, we are all coming into the conversation with our own contexts, and the situation as a whole has its context. Resolving that situation is like unwinding a beautiful and intricate textile so that we can see the individual threads that comprise it. When we can see the colors and textures of each of the threads, and get a sense of how they got into the shape they were in before we unwound them, we can do so much more than if we were just trying to sew these already-wound tapestries together. Instead of being tightly bound up, we relax and see each other for who we really are.

This may be an imperfect analogy, but the point is that we often come into situations of conflict, both internal and external, with a lot of wound up meanings and implications, and we don't always give ourselves a chance to communicate these meanings and implications to one another. Often, an individual may not fully understand the meanings that came together to make the experience one finds oneself in. If this method does anything, it sets us in a frame of mind where we take the time to sit down together and come to understand ourselves, each other and the full situation to the utmost of our abilities, and thus increase our capability to create a better situation—one that takes into account each person's perspective and circumstance.

How We Imagine a Better World

Is there something to the talk of "making your dreams come true?"

In the grand scheme of the twistings and turnings of eternity, our lives pass on their transient paths in what amounts to a blink. How uncanny, then, that in the span of such a relative instant, within a much, much smaller instant of however long we spend contemplating, we find ourselves at times dreaming up imaginary futures than can span much greater lengths. Goals and ideals, ambitions and aspirations, dreams of what could be a righter, juster way for things to be, and of a world the dreamer will never see. It seems paradoxical that our word "ideal" is thought to originate from the Proto-Indo-European root "*weid-", which means "to see." The ideal can be thought of as a future vision, and yet it is not the kind of vision that we see with our eyes.

What do these visions and imaginings all amount to? They are the conceptualizations of the minds of highly intellectually developed primates. As we turn this way and that, searching, seeking, and sometimes finding, how often it is that we turn inward. Consciousness turns towards itself, becoming conscious of itself, and envisions itself as something else—something, perhaps, better? The context in which consciousness imagines itself is as a body, or in a body, depending on the ontology to which the imaginer subscribes.

Would the consciousness be able to express this kind of vision without being so embodied? Perhaps we cannot truly know the answer to this question, but it certainly seems as though the human animal is the only thing we are currently aware of which has the ability to reflect on these matters through the use of linguistic symbols. It is with these linguistic symbols that we tell ourselves stories of our pasts, presents, and futures. Language is the embodied form by which we contemplate and express these visions. Human minds have developed to the point of being so highly self-aware, that we can come to reflect on our own self-awareness, as I am doing right now in writing this.

We may not always be the only ones who do this, and we can ask ourselves if other species will continue to evolve towards greater self-awareness. As long as we continue to destroy them, however, we may never get the chance to find out. In fact, those species that demonstrate self-awareness: dolphins, crows, pigs, and others that are here unmentioned, but which you may read about with a simple internet search, may end up being extinguished by the results of our more destructive endeavors. Or perhaps we will first push ourselves into extinction, and it is they that will outlive us humans, perhaps someday telling stories that we will never hear.

How ironic that the mind that evolved to the point of being able to dream and idealize a better way of living has also dreamt up the means for its own annihilation. This annihilation exists as a physical potential already, held in the form of undetonated but highly destructive nuclear warheads that have been stockpiled in vast amounts. The shift of the climate towards a seemingly ever more catastrophic state, the pollution and over-fishing of the oceans, and the destruction of the rain forests may be leading us down a much more insidious path to annihilation. And as we continue to further develop more advanced and powerful technology that can make yet greater changes on the environment, the decision as to how we will use this technology will form the determination between this dreaded fate being mere possibility—or grave inevitability.

But why would I start a piece that began with talking about the glorious things we dream of, and then twist the reader's arm and take us down this wayward venture of exploring the horrors man has committed and has the potential of committing? The reason I have chosen to write about that is because in this troublesome but undeniable  development, there is yet to be found a deep-seated gem: for the devastation humankind has wrought is a testament to the impact that can be made when people work together for a certain ideal. In the case of the above example, the ideal at work is that of gaining profit and utilizing all of the planets resources—an ideal which while on its own can lead to the reaping of substantial benefits and enjoyable luxuries, can certainly be (and has certainly been) quite costly when implemented with disregard for the land, the creatures living on it, and the ecosystem as a whole. If we take this incredible power of imagination that we refine and express through language, and turn it to the betterment of one another, and ideals of compassion, wisdom, and liberty, we can raise up together and create a world as beautiful and inspiring as the previous vision is ugly and disheartening.

The twistings and turnings with which I began this article essentially describe the grand scheme of things: motion and activity, or substantial non-idealized existence. The dreaming and idealizing we engage in takes place at merely one bend or turn, and the inward gaze is like pausing to momentarily look in a mirror. These dreams, both despicable and delightful, are but a flicker on the great cosmic mirror. But brightly may this flicker glimmer—and those who gaze at it too long may find themselves momentarily blinded. When we reflect, when consciousness looks at itself, it is looking at a reflection in the great mirror of the cosmos—an image of an existence, future or past, that is not the present moment in which consciousness exists. And the bright flicker is the dazzling manner in which fixating on the past or future can captivate us and pull us out of the present, where our real power exists, where the motion and twistings and turnings take place. Whether we imagine a utopian or dystopian future, this very imagining, in order to maintain its bearings, requires that we return to looking at the realities of the world we live in. Our aspirations must be grounded in the reality we find ourselves in, if they are to have any impact on changing it. Our ideals, (our visions of that which is not), must be balanced by our sight, (looking at that which is).

If people were to come together and unify our vast capacity to change the world in order to realize the dream of a world where we prioritize the health of the planet, the advancement of scientific discovery, and the betterment of every human being with maximization of freedom, the world would be transformed in short order. If we have been able to wipe out much of the life of the ocean that evolved over billions of years within the span of only less than a hundred years, imagine what type of positive impact we could make by dedicating the next hundred years to the thriving of civilization, idealizing an attitude of environmental stewardship and a harmonious coexistence with the other species of this planet. It may seem like a tall order to wish for everyone to come together for these ideals, but the imagination and articulation begins with individuals—it begins with you and me. Each one of us has the capacity to implement the glorious dreams we dream of in our own lives, and these dreams can extend to include the lives of others. After all, aren't we all living one life together, here and now?

It seems to me that being able to articulate an idea of the way things could be as being a certain way is one of the most powerful, wonderful, and dangerous things to ever happen in the entirety of the universe's existence. What other animals do we know of who think of being in different places than they are? Do our dogs imagine us while we are gone? There is probably evidence to suggest a plausible answer to that question, but I ask it more in a rhetorical sense, to lead into pointing out what makes us different from them and other imaginative animals—and that is our being able to articulate, and in particular to express through language, a particular expression of a particular state envisioned in the future.

Furthermore, once spoken or written in physical form, such future visions can be read and interpreted and considered by others who may not have had such articulations occur in their own minds. Thus, inspiration can spread like a blessed fire, just as fear and demagoguery can be communicated like a cursed plague. With the dawn of language, no longer was one's imagination limited to a silent musing. This, I believe, is the primary means by which human civilization has risen to such heights in such a short span of time, and it is also how we have at times become so collectively misguided and have made terrible destructive large-scale decisions such as genocide and mass-scale war. We can move together towards a united vision, or at least as close as we can get to each other's respective visions, by uniting around the words we share a common understanding of through our customarily developed linguistic system.

As those ideas which we articulate in the public sphere are to inevitably find themselves leaving impressions on the minds that understand and interpret them, it falls upon those who project their ideals to refine and shape them in the most mindful and considerate of ways. When one articulation is taken up and reinterpreted through another mind, the refining process can be further potentiated. It is in this way—by potentiating one another's ideals—that we can enact the greatest change by working collaboratively. But he who plants the seed has the initial responsibility of taking the time to understand and consider that which he is about to sow, and to foster a down-to-earth connection with the ground the seed is to be planted in. This is the essence of Semioethics: the endeavor within Semiotics wherein we contemplate and consider what it means to do something good. In Ethics we consider what is good and how we go about doing what is good. Semioethics takes a step deeper and asks what we mean when we say something is good.

With sincere, genuinely well-meaning intentions and inquisitive minds, we can take ourselves to incredible places. Now, I am not suggesting that you or I are tasked with hashing out the perfect ideal that will lead us all to some kind of salvation, nor would I encourage that degree of hubris. What I am suggesting is that we not take our ability to propose ideal futures for granted. Knowing the impact we can make, we can be mindful of the dreams we are dreaming, listen carefully to one another, and take the time to envision something that really makes sense. We can all recognize the great power we have at our fingertips, and in doing so there lies, as Spiderman's Uncle Ben so famously tells us, the recognition of great responsibility. Because everything we dream can become what we say and put out into the world in embodied form, and that has palpable potential to affect and shape reality. There's nothing supernatural about that. Of course, Uncle Ben got that idea from free-thinkers writing during the French Revolution. They saw that people in power are not noble just for having power, nor is nobility passed through blood, but that what is truly noble is to recognize the responsibility inherent in great power. I am using the statement in regard to our capability of imagining ideals, and I will acknowledge that even those who stay silent have some share of responsibility. But I am not the sort to push responsibility on people, but rather to simply point it out. The real point of this article is to thoroughly consider and give the reader a sense of the power we possess through the articulation of our ideals. And so here I can joyfully leave off and say: with great power comes great possibility.