I recently wrote the title in an email to a discussion list I participate in. I'm not sure where it came from - whether I read it somewhere or heard someone say it - but I am fairly certain that it is true. Even as I read my own words echoed on the discussion list, I wondered at the truth of them. I could not find a weakness, but I did find abstraction inherently assumed in the statement. It is fair to note what is assumed, in fairness to myself and others.

Expectations are derived from many things. Part of expectations are heuristic - learned things. A child might think that an orange tree can produce bananas - in time, we can hope, that the child will learn the difference. Society does that - though, in all fairness, society is also seemingly committed to the same level of thinking that creates things people perceive as problems. As Albert Einstein once wrote:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Despite itself, society has managed to progress - but as Ayn Rand notes:

The course of mankind's progress is not a straight, automatic line, but a tortuous struggle, with long detours or relapses into the stagnant night of the irrational. Mankind moves forward by the grace of those human bridges who are able to grasp and transmit, across years or centuries, the achievements that men had reached - and to carry them further.

The bridges of which Ayn Rand writes would seem to coincide with the ratchet mechanism through which society has seen progress - sometimes, the ratchet slides back, but somehow society manages to move beyond any slips. The trouble isn't progress, the trouble is stagnation.

A few nights ago I sat with a millionaire in front of a house he had built for his son, and he told me his story. He had started off milking cows decades ago, to now own one of the most well known tyre (tire) empires in Trinidad and Tobago. All the magic and mysticism of success was laid bare in what he told me- and out of all that he shared, one part of the story stands out.

He found a piece of property in a very high traffic area, but it was swampland. He spent the money and filled it up so that he could build on it - something he did with cash he had built up over the years of selling tires. He was desperate for cash, trying to leverage what he had into what he had as a goal - a large tire shop in a high traffic area that, in time, would not only pay for itself but also pay for much more. He had to sell some property he had to get some cash, and he used that to start the building. No corners were cut, and because of that the foundation was solid but the cash was low.

Sooner or later, a pattern emerges. Sometimes we never see it emerging, and it ends in mystery – such as when people die before their illness can be diagnosed, or when a relationship ends before it can be understood, or when a species dies out before anyone even knew about it. Sooner or later, a pattern emerges.

So it is with man's search for meaning. Is it possible that man's search for meaning results in the search for meaning itself? Is it possible that simply by trying to understand why one is here one is answering the question? Patterns do not lie. Religions and philosophies orbit humanity, held together with the gravity of a search for meaning. Some claim to find meaning in religion and philosophy, be it in a deity or lack of a deity. Either way, there is faith involved – be it the casual faith of an atheist in a lack of a deity or the more rigorous faith of believing in a deity. The search for meaning is not found in religion or a lack of religion – it is only punctuated by it. In every philosophy and religion, we idolize those that we believe obtained meaning.

Meaning is not found in tradition. Tradition only gives a context, and religion inherits this. Any religious text only prescribes a methodology for finding meaning – or not finding meaning but accepting a certain level of meaning, perhaps to keep one from poking too many holes in one's own mind in the late night.

It was an orange daylight, cascading across a coffee shop he was unfamiliar with. Whenever he looked around, he recognized people from his life. On one side sat a woman he loved, blond, hair flowing across the back of a couch – but she was not alone, and he did not know who she was with – but that did not disturb him. At the bar, he saw another woman he loved, her secret safe in the crowd as she chatted away and laughed as only a Dutch speaking woman could. Another blond woman sat at the other side of the bar, catching his eye she smiles and waves.

He waves back. He's not quite sure how he got here. He's not quite sure what he's doing here, but here he is. He orders a triple espresso as he used to, recognizing the woman who serves it as a failed date from a Son Volt concert – but who remained a friend. There sits Heather, the shy girl in college, and over there is the woman he always wished he had spoken to. And over there, and over there, and...

He now sees the men, recognizing a Professor from his days in college, a Doctor from his days in the Navy, the sane ex-boxer turned 12 string guitarist at coffee shops, the Apache roommate, the midnight bong engineer of the old gang and so many others. So many others.

The blond with the Colombian accent comes over, gives him a hug and walks back to where she sits. He walks over, nodding at the man next to her.

'Hi. So you're with her now?'
'I think so. I'm not sure.'
'She's a good woman.'
'I think so. I'm not sure.'
'She can be a little strange.'
'I think so. I'm not sure.'
'Get sure.'