Humans are symbol creating, symbol using and symbol abusing animals. It is the absolute thing that separates us from other animals. Our ability to create meaning from symbols is really powerful.
In fact, it is so powerful, that I would venture to suppose that if God actually had a beginning, that beginning came by the development of a symbol.
Just look all around you. Symbols are everywhere. You ascribe meaning to things without even trying. It is the way we pass knowledge, it is the way we communicate. We have developed entire language systems around characters and forms of small slashes on paper.
Our brains are capable of converting symbols instantly to complex meaning. We can even think in symbols and in fact the very fact that you can read this means that you have mastered the capability of stringing hundreds of symbols together and can comprehend what I am communicating.
Amazing when you really think about it. No other life form has this ability. Language, the use of symbols, the ability to represent abstraction is fundamentally miraculous.
It is the reason we collect things, tattoo our bodies, wear jewelry, worship idols. We are at our core an evolution of symbols. We have become so dependent on symbols, we have developed monetary systems that represent concepts around commodities and essential needs. Our economy is based on a vast network of symbols and in the last two years we have built giant repositories to store all these symbols that contain more data storage then the entire world history combined.
Having said that, hopefully you will not think in have lost my mind when I have decided to create my own symbols and map them to meaning important to me. This is a shortcut. I can assign complex meaning to a symbol, and i can use that as a shortcut during prayer, meditation, and daily reminders.
Repetition builds efficiency. Now that I have meditated every day for 129 days in a row, I am starting to perfect methods of getting to the same place in my mind quickly and easily.
This morning I had a break through with the symbol that I have created for my future self. That symbol is the number 78. Do not ask how that came to be, it does not matter.
78 is now a badge I wear in my mind over my left breast and it is anchored by a commitment to make the future a reality. It is linked intrinsically to some other symbols important to me. There is emotions attached to 78, and when I am in a rough spot, tough decision, feeling a negative emotion I just simply think of that 78 badge over my heart. That though brings a wellspring of powerfully positive emotions and in that state I feel like I can overcome anything.
Of course life has a habit of humbling me quickly, but I know have a simulacrum of my future self that I can quickly access through the symbol 78.
Guy Reams (314)
365 Member
