Meaning is a shaky edifice we build out of scraps, dogmas, childhood injuries, newspaper articles, chance remarks, old fillms, small victories, people hated, people loved; perhaps it is because our sense of what is the case is constructed from such inadequate materials that we defend it so fiercely, even to death.
Interpretation
Meaning is built from our experiences and influences, often flawed, yet we defend it fiercely.
In this quote, Salman Rushdie reflects on the nature of meaning in our lives, suggesting that it is not a solid foundation but rather a fragile structure made up of various and sometimes inadequate influences, such as personal experiences, beliefs, and societal inputs. This fragility leads us to defend our sense of meaning vehemently, as it is so intertwined with our identities and perceptions of reality, even in the face of dissent or challenges.
In practice
In a discussion about identity at a philosophy meetup.
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
Since we live in a society that promotes faddism and temporary superficial adaptation of different values, we are easily convinced that changes have occurred in arenas where there has been little or no change.
We must strive to become good ancestors.
The ego relies on the familiar. It is reluctant to experience the unknown, which is they very essence of life.
We need to incorporate that age-old concept of redemption into the work that we do in the criminal justice system in California.
The universe is not only queerer than we suppose; it is queerer than we can suppose
Denunciations of the manipulativeness of advertisers can unfortunately all too easily be turned on their heads into denunciations of the gullibility of consumers. Both are forms of scapegoating, neither accomplishes anything.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.