In moments of quiet, void of fires, my mind wallows for meaning. I can’t help but search. I hope to confirm there is a lacing of meaning woven throughout the threads of mine and our actions. I know I attempt to act with intention. I feel it matters, but why? I wish for a compass, map, rather than my scattered senses processed through threads of cognition. How can I accurately measure my movement without this? A scale would be great. All I feel I have is a lifelong chain of inklings. In my search, instinctively, I start wide. Where are the grand universalities? What connects it all? If I could know, then I could place myself.
The more I search, the further I am from it. Gaps flooded with nothing. Echoes of nihilism. If there is a map, I cannot find it. Nothing but vast noisy nothingness. It pushes me down. Whatever I choose doesn’t matter. I have no scale, so it’s all the same. Is it not? Lying in this, eventually I know I must pull back. I whisper this to myself. Eventually I return.
I settle back in, home again. I’m now choosing to be idealistic, yet aware of my lack of a map. Contrast strikes me. Under the same conditions, I was then lying in the void. Through my decision to return, I now stand. I’m glancing and smiling. I can do my work, help, and be a friend to those around. A wide difference. It might not be grand, but it feels profound. It doesn’t affect everyone, but it affects me deeply. My inklings presented me the choice. I chose to follow it. Now my world is different, and perhaps a few others around as well.
That was just a single inkling. Today I had the choice, tomorrow I may again. These inklings are somewhat constant. Even if I was directed by instinct, not pure choice, I was still there to witness. Maybe even given a chance to push. This may seem narrow if you want meaning to encompass all, yet you are all you have.
I feel meaning doesn’t require clarity, grandness, or universality. To me, meaning is flowing through the things that matter to us. Every day can feel meaningful on its own if you are affecting, reflecting on, or seeing what matters. It can look vastly different. Inklings can whisper to us what these things that matter are, and sometimes grow past what feels inkling-esque. They can also lay out the paths to affect them.
We all have things that affect us and those around us in our worlds, and inklings to act on them. Is existing, as an agent, in a mattering world not what constitutes a meaningful life? It is to me, and that matters.