the human impulse to assign meaning

Our lives are filled with moments so delicate, so impossibly small, they almost slip past unnoticed-- almost. But, they don’t. We don’t let them. Instead, they linger, stack up, and suddenly you have an exoskeleton of something that resembles an optical illusion. A flicker in someone’s expression. A sentence interrupted and forgotten. A streetlight with a dead bulb. You feel it. You assign it meaning. Surely, it means something. It must.

A glance, when partnered with a smile, becomes a promise. A silence becomes loaded with intention. Every word out of his mouth becomes poetry. We cradle these fragments like sacred relics, trying to decode the ancient language of the universe speaking in crumbs. It’s ineffable: utterly indescribable, too sanctifying to speak of. And in that reverence, we elevate the ordinary to the divine. We swear there’s something beneath it all. Because after everything; observing, pondering, analyzing every possible angle-- how could there not be?

You do it. Don’t pretend you don’t. You’ve checked your phone a hundred times for a message that never came. You’ve seen an angel number and decided it was a sign. You’ve stared at the ceiling, rewriting the entire day. Admit it.

We challenge ourselves to look deeper, think harder, feel more. To uncover the thread tying everything together. To decode the subtext, the hidden meanings, the messages the world is whispering through the cracks in its voice.

But why? Why do we do this? Is it an act of hope? A symptom of longing? Or perhaps, is it just a trick of the brain firing too many synapses in too little time-- a product of processing rapidly, trying to make sense of something before it even settles? A cognitive glitch?

There is science behind this. Our brains are wired to recognize patterns-- even where none exist. As an example, pareidolia: seeing faces in clouds, finding meaning in randomness. We do this with people, with memories, with objects, even. We overthink because we are built to. We reach because it gives the illusion of depth-- even if we are just drowning in the shallow end. The brain is addicted to closure. It hates loose ends. That’s why we dream, why we narrate, why we assign motives to strangers in coffee shops. The illusion of depth is better than no depth at all.

“Stories-- individual stories, family stories, national stories-- are what stitch together the disparate elements of human existence into a coherent whole. We are story animals.”

— Yann Martel, Beatrice and Virgil

It’s easy to charge the smallest things into something ineffable, into a significance they were never meant to hold. But not everything deserves to be elevated. Not everything carries significance.

And besides, maybe, just maybe, it really was nothing. Maybe it meant nothing. Maybe I built a cathedral out of dust. Or, maybe this is just another turn in the spiral-- my obsessive reinterpretation, emotional labor poised to give weight to empty spaces. I turn maybes into certainties, certainties into scripture.

I spent months reconstructing every passing moment, tracing constellations in spilled milk. I was convinced the universe was winking at me. It wasn’t. It didn’t care. I wrote war-draft level letters, and you shrugged. You built mythology around a delay in my text messages, and it was just an accident of timing. We read the stars and called it fate. We treated the mundane as sacred. It was a blip.

A juxtaposition of spiritual reverence and absurd reality.

I lit candles for things that didn’t deserve fire. I prayed to coincidences. I offered my attention like incense, hoping the universe would answer. But the altar was empty. I was the only one kneeling.

Maybe there is no sacred text hidden in the folds of our lives. Maybe the meaning was never there to find. Maybe meaning isn’t found--it’s assigned, retroactively, emotionally. And we assign it not because it’s true, but because we need it to be.

Sometimes things are just what they are—surface level, unremarkable. Let it go. Not everything is sacred. Not everything is a message. Not everything is about you, for you. Some things are just things. Insignificant. Pointless. Quiet.

That is my truth, that is my realization. I believed in something ineffable. Even if it never existed. It is ridiculous, and I am human. Next week, I’ll do it all again.

Maybe, just maybe, I’ll feel a shift in the air and be sure it’s a sign. And it’ll feel sacred, it’ll feel real. I will believe again. I will start building. That too, is ineffable.