I'm coming at this from a slightly different perspective thanks to recent discussions I had about literary criticism... authorial intent vs. reader response... You know the Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken? According to the author, it actually isn't about anything more than what it seems on the surface, choosing between two roads in the woods. There's no intended statement about life, no deep philosophical insights, and yet people still keep finding them.
And they aren't wrong. Just because they weren't intended doesn't mean they aren't there. Reading and listening aren't about passively receiving a message, they're about the meeting between reader and author, listener and musician. Each performance, each reading is unique to the recipient. It's not about what they put into it, but about what you take away from it...
I've got a list of quotes from various places which are somehow spiritually important for me, little bits of insight that just struck a chord somehow. Some of them were probably intended that way, some of them weren't, but it doesn't matter because they have significance to me. My attitude towards Hexpiritus and that quote is similar-the quote to you is about what you know deep down it's about, even if someone else knows it differently. It may not have been written to be about the experience of multiplicity or anything, but if it works for someone, great. Meaning is where you find it.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2005-08-20 01:29 pm (UTC)And they aren't wrong. Just because they weren't intended doesn't mean they aren't there. Reading and listening aren't about passively receiving a message, they're about the meeting between reader and author, listener and musician. Each performance, each reading is unique to the recipient. It's not about what they put into it, but about what you take away from it...
I've got a list of quotes from various places which are somehow spiritually important for me, little bits of insight that just struck a chord somehow. Some of them were probably intended that way, some of them weren't, but it doesn't matter because they have significance to me. My attitude towards Hexpiritus and that quote is similar-the quote to you is about what you know deep down it's about, even if someone else knows it differently. It may not have been written to be about the experience of multiplicity or anything, but if it works for someone, great. Meaning is where you find it.
Or something like that.