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.
I want freedom for the full expression of my personality.
You put too much stock in human intelligence, it doesn't annihilate human nature.
The door to the invisible must be visible.
The soul is not the body and it may be in one body or in another, and pass from body to body.
Mind is nothing but dreams and dreams - dreams of the past, dreams of the future, dreams of how things should be, dreams of great ambitions, achievements. Dreams and desires, that is the stuff mind is made of. But it surrounds you like a China Wall. And because of it the fish remains unaware of the ocean.
In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature.
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