The Production of Meaning

The issue of making sense of the moment has bewildered philosophers for centuries. The challenge is formidable if you consider the proposition, that the only source of understanding for the present moment is the moment itself. But that's the hint: The nature of the issue is perfectly recursive and so shall be the nature of any meaningful understanding of it.

There is a rabbit-hole that people become familiar with when they start talking seriously about Reality. It's called Espistemology, the line of inquiry of every practitioner of philosophy. It's of necessity because the very act of making comment about Reality is 'epistemological'. If you're not familiar with the term, there is one thing you'll notice as you grow acquainted: The term is extremely malleable.

Widely speaking, epistemology refers to any way of making sense of Reality, any way of finding a 'logic' to what happens. When you find the logic of something, that's when it makes sense to you. It follows that your personal epistemology is your personal way of making sense of Reality. Epistemologies are ‘ways of knowing’ and finding truth, think of stems and roots. The final function of epistemology is to find a sense of adequacy in your course of action and to find a sense of agreement with the present moment.

• ✰ ⇢ Term / Epistemologies, Ways of Knowing

If you could turn the idea of epistemology into a verb, the result would be something in the spirit of Sensemaking. In short, sensemaking is the process of assessing familiarity in your experience. One way or another, you're always doing it; it's one of those life processes that happen automatically, like digestion or a heartbeat.

The target outcome of sensemaking is achieving a sense 'closure' that feels like a satisfactory understanding of the moment. You seek this closure for sanity — to know if the moment you're going through is something you can bear with. You make sense of the moment when you understand it in concept and feeling to achieve a closure that is semantic. Making sense is a process where you assess your feelings of satisfaction with and belonging towards the moment, looking for a sense of familiarity, contentness, and 'should-be-hereness'.

• ✰ ⇢ Term / Sensemaking Process