Dr. Q Discovers The Problem?

MT Sphinx: (enters office and sits down on chair, looking bothered and frustrated)

Dr. Q: (finishes writing something on a notepad on the desk and looks up) Well, hello again. I've been seeing you alot lately. How are you today?

MT Sphinx: You gotta help me, Doctor. I think I'm going mad! If life's meaning is only what I perceive it to be, then the perception of meaning is my responsibility. But what if I seem to have lost the ability to perceive meaning? Why does it seem that even if I do perceive meaning that it's all just a pointless illusion anyway? How can I allow myself to perceive meaning in things without feeling that I'm only fooling myself in the end?

Dr. Q: (looking suddenly quite uncomfortable) I'm sorry, will you excuse me? I'll be right back... (runs out the door and to the washroom across the hall, leaving office door open)

MT Sphinx: (mumbles impatiently after a few minutes) I better not have to pay for this...

Dr. Q: (returns 15 minutes later...beads of perspiration on forehead but looking more relaxed and drying hands on a small towel) My apologies for the wait. But I think I just figured out what your problem is.

MT Sphinx: Hahaha. Yeah, right.

Dr. Q: Yes. (returns to chair and sits down) Ok...you have accepted that meaning is your responsibility?

MT Sphinx: (reluctantly)....ummm.... i guess...

Dr. Q: Good. (lights a cigarette) And the problem you have with this isn't that meaning is your responsibility, it's that none of it seems to matter or mean anything in the end. Sometimes you find it very difficult to accept the transitory nature of meaning.

MT Sphinx: Right. Exactly.

Dr. Q: But the fact that meaning is transitory makes it only appear illusory. The problem is ONLY when meaning seems to have fallen away. You don't seem to be disturbed about meaning when you see or are aware of it in your life.

MT Sphinx: (listening more intently) Go on....

Dr. Q: Well, this implies that you only find meaning to be a problem when meaning shifts and becomes something other than your pre-conceived notion of it. You are resisting flow. When your idea of what meaning is, is flowing with what is actually happening, you become more at peace, more creative. Your thought patterns are less erratic and more focused. If your idea of significance and meaning conflicts with what is in front of you, I notice that our visits become more frequent.

MT Sphinx: ...hmmmm....

Dr. Q: So the solution here is....are you ready for this?

MT Sphinx: Just spit it out....

Dr. Q: You must be as free flowing and open to change with your perceptions as you are to change itself. There IS meaning. But you must be able to change your perceptions of meaning as the meaning itself changes. Meaning is everywhere. It is only illusion when you are not aware that it is not an illusion. Your awareness of meaning as an illusion changes the fact that it is an illusion and brings that meaning out of the darkness of your blindness. And there is still alot of free will involved as there are multiple ways to perceive meaning in things, and also many different levels of meaning within the same thing. Even though it may not matter in the end, what matters is NOW, and if you can change your perceptions to become aware of whatever meaning is present in your life right NOW, then maybe you won't find significance such a frustrating subject.

MT Sphinx: Well, Doctor, you're finally starting to be worth the money I pay you. So I have to be eternally ready and able to shift my perceptions with the flow of subjective existential meaning. I cannot allow my thinking to become too rigid or inflexible or too habitual. I have to allow my perceptions to become like water, flowing into ideas and conceptions and taking their form, and yet being ready to take on the shape of another perception when the current changes. There is meaning in life and it is not an illusion but it IS ever changing and indeed empty of any objective meanings or truths, but rich with subjective significance if I choose to see it.

Dr. Q: Yes. And it does help to have an imagination and creative ability.

MT Sphinx: You think? I thought that imagination would be dangerous in this regard, considering that people who don't perceive reality in the same way as others are thought to be 'insane'.

Dr. Q: Well, perceptions of meaning are much more open to interpretation because meaning is apparently so much more subjective. Reality, while also subjective, needs to have some objective consistency or we would not be capable of functioning in a civilization or society. Reality and the perception of meaning within reality are two seperate but connected issues. Besides, perhaps sanity isn't all it's cracked up to be, anyway.

MT Sphinx: Wow. I really think I understand. This the best session we've ever had. I think I'm actually starting to get it now! What the heck went on in that washroom, Doctor?

Dr.Q: (chuckling) Let's just say that I'll have to disagree with Nietzsche that all great ideas are conceived through walking......