My search for Meaning
Introduction
What is your meaning? Family? Significant other? may be you are religious, giving you meaning? do you earn for no meaning? or do you yearn for a meaning? No matter where you are I would like to introduce you to my way of life, and the meaning I used to derive from it, its pitfalls and its sinister ways in our modern society.
Ever since a young age my meaning has been tied not to who I am, but what I can produce especially in the form of exam scores. But unfortunately no matter how hard I tried, this metric was against me, cause there was always someone better. As a kid I did not realize this, but if you tie your meaning to how well you perform someone who does better than you will diminish your sense of meaning. However, I was pretty resilient and in most cases I was intelligent enough to tell myself that I have not failed I just found another way I could not succeed. Life became this constant game of success and failures that I had to learn from or else there is no meaning derived from them.
A lost kid
It was not all sunshines, there were few instances I broke one I distinctly remember was when I resolved to cheating in grade 6, until which I had a resolve to not to. This was a subject that was mostly a forced rote memorization history, which unfortunately I did not study for as I forgot my test date. I had extremely great friends who helped me out even though I never had thought of doing the same. From then I slipped answers to others time to time, but never wanted to cheat myself since there was no fun in it for me. Why did this affect my meaning? cause I realized my so called meaning must be met on a schedule, I must fuel the fire constantly else it will burn out, hence I did fuel the fire constantly. The second road bump was in grade 9 advanced math, I had a huge fascination and obsession with permutations and combinations, but one fine test day I just couldn't bring myself to answer all the questions in time (in-fact, I never did) and my teacher was a bit harsh on me as she expected a really good result from me. All I could do was break into tears because I felt helpless, I tried my hardest to get as many questions as possible but what can I do if I am slow and never seem to improve upon it? is my meaning flawed? We adults should realize even though we now know meaning is something you will forever figure out, kids believe that we know almost everything as an adult, so when someone like my teacher was disappointed in me I genuinely felt this dread that may be I can never be better.
A Glimmer of Hope
If you think this is where things get better, no it gets worse. I wanted to leave this constant chase for meaning by the time I turned grade 11. I was sitting there meaning less, not knowing what I would call meaning next. That's when I met humans, humans who I will turn to love so much they are still in my life as friends. My grades fell but I was not bothering about it, cause I genuinely wanted to explore the camaraderie that this group provided me with. By the time I wanted to go to my undergraduate, I had a pivot in my meaning now it was both academics and friendships. By the end of my four years in university I fell in love with my current field of choice, and not having a sound familial situation, just pushed me more into work again. Thinking about it, I believe as of writing this blog, I might have spent more time with math and computers than any humans in my life.
The Trenches
Then came one of the most pivotal decisions in my life leading to this very blog. My move all the way to the other side of the globe to pursue a masters degree. I have been wanting to do this from a very young age, and I knew I had moved as far away from it as possible from everything that is not letting me confront the demons in me, and confront I did. I was actively trying to once again tie my meaning to work, and overly relying on others. It was nothing but an escape which was a pattern of behaviour I did not realize I was doing until this moment. This very moment, I neither had the people this far away nor a sense of security in my skills (academia does that to you). Depression that I pushed deep in me un confronted finally surfaced, and I finally felt safe enough with the resources I need to let it consume me. Three years, three years of constant struggle of a person stripped out of all meaning, everything that was once my meaning is not anymore.
Redemption
I dragged myself out of the depths of depression (with a little help of course!) and then realized I no longer want my meaning tied to performance or work. I wanted to just exist, and academia was an ever consuming beast stripping you out of everything you can provide. I wanted to strip myself away from this beast, and move I did. It is saddening to me how much academia has turned someone wanting to do two Phd's into someone pledging to destroy this framework. Once I was out I went into the industry, and surprisingly it was much easier. My meaning was not tied to my work, my performance was, and for once in my life I felt at ease being somewhere as this entity I call a "company" does not care about me, and I don't have to care about it either. We are together for a shared goal "keep the company alive and serve our customers". For a weird reason I liked this, I liked the idea that if I perform bad the company will simply kick me out. So I am doing things right until I am in the company. It was a refreshingly nice take.
Back to Production as Meaning
I still have production as meaning, but not in the way I used to be. The only thing throughout my life I lacked is output. All the efforts I put in were unseen and unheard of, in my work I did for a brief moment attach my meaning to a project, but this time I knew people will use it some day, even if not today and people around me agree, for heavens sake! Academia among all its flaws, never bothered to adapt to my needs or let me express in a way I felt comfortable, and somehow the industry did. Now the funnier part is after the completion of this project, it did not matter to me that whether someone had used it or not. Just knowing there were people who had access to this, in a format I believed is easy to understand is all I ever wanted. What I was seeking was art, my art that I wanted out there, and finally I think I have found my meaning... for now.
With love, Tux