Elizaveta Friesem
  • About
  • Books
    • Media is us >
      • Principles of communication
      • Micro- and macropower
      • ACE model
      • Description of chapters
      • When conflicts get out of control
    • Hypertexts >
      • Me, looking for meaning >
        • A >
          • Anxiety
          • Am I strong or am I weak?
        • B >
          • Binaries
          • Both sides
        • C >
          • Can I give myself credit for being empathetic?
          • Choice
          • Circumstances
          • Cognitive biases
          • Common sense
          • Communication
          • Content and form of this book
          • Coronavirus and me
          • Culture
          • Cycle of violence
        • D >
          • Depression
          • Do children ask themselves about the purpose of life?
          • Doing the right thing
        • E >
          • Emotional pain
          • Empathy
          • Empathy as a matter of self-preservation
          • Everybody has their struggles
          • Everybody is connected
          • Explain/excuse conflation
        • F >
          • Feelings and emotions
          • Forgetting about your purpose
          • Free will
        • G >
          • Good vs. Bad
        • H >
          • How much do we understand each other?
          • Human brain
          • Human nature
          • Human needs
          • Human thinking
          • Human thinking is nonlinear
          • Hypertext books
        • I >
          • I am an optimist
          • Ideas
          • "I'll never understand!"
          • Individual meanings vs. shared meanings
          • Inner compass
          • Interpretation
          • "It is what it is"
        • J
        • K >
          • Knowing your true purpose
          • Knowledge
        • L >
          • Language
          • List of completed pages
          • Literal vs. nonliteral communication
        • M >
          • Make Sense
          • May I meet this, too, with kindness
          • Meaning as importance
          • Mean and stupid
          • Meaning
          • Meaningless
          • Meaning wars
          • Meaning of life
          • Meaning communities
          • Meanings perceived by animals
          • Meaning-seeking vs. meaning-making
          • Media
          • (Mis)understanding each other's needs
          • My quest for meaning
        • N >
          • Norms
        • O >
          • Objectification
          • On being a scholar
          • On being a writer
          • On being right
        • P >
          • Paradox
          • Parenting
          • Privilege
          • Polarization
          • Postmodern worldview
          • Postmodern philosophy
          • Power
          • Power to see things in a certain way
          • Problem/solution binary
        • Q
        • R >
          • Reality
          • Rhizome in philosophy
        • S >
          • Science, religion and art
          • Self-awareness and empathy of higher order
          • Self-awareness
          • Self-empathy
          • Subjectivity and objectivity
          • Suggested citation format
          • Synesthesia
        • T >
          • "The Death of the Author"
          • The importance of having a purpose
          • Truth
        • U >
          • Understanding ourselves
          • Us and them
        • V >
          • Verbal vs. nonverbal communication
          • Violence in the human nature
        • W >
          • What does it mean to "understand"?
          • What is a text?
          • What we can learn about ourselves from media
          • What is "natural"?
          • What's the point?
          • What will this project become?
          • We hurt others when we are in pain
          • Where do meanings come from?
          • Why am I trying to stay sane?
          • Why do people hurt each other?
          • Why is language so unhelpful?
          • Why do everyday objects make sense?
          • Why do misunderstandings happen?
        • X
        • Y
        • Z
      • Power of meanings // Meanings of power
      • It's not about "them"
  • Editing
    • Me as your editor
    • How I will help you
    • Pricing
    • Privacy policy
  • Blog
  • Workshops
    • Five (easy) steps to become media literate
    • Surviving the polarization vortex
    • Understanding yourself
    • Not enough
  • Learn more
    • Bio
    • Talks and interviews
    • Essays
    • Poems >
      • Stranger
      • Lonely heart
      • Fairy tales
      • Dreams and nightmares
      • Puzzles
      • Moon
      • Seasons
      • Muse
      • Art
      • Sketches
      • Nonsense
    • Educational materials
  • Contact me

Make Sense

PAGE IN PROGRESS
What you see here is a page of my hypertext book Me, Looking for Meaning. Initially empty, it will slowly be filled with thoughts, notes, and quotes. One day, I will use them to write a coherent entry, similar to these completed pages. See this post to better understand my creative process. Thank you for your interest and patience! :)

Picture
Take a look at this picture. Once you see it, you automatically try to understand it. This is how human brain works. Whatever our senses register needs to be interpreted according to our knowledge and previous experiences. It needs to be quickly categorized and explained in order for us to decide how to react. In other words, in needs to make sense. ​

You can trace this reaction back to our evolutionary journey. Even the simplest living beings constantly evaluate their environment in order to answer the question basic for their survival: "Approach or avoid?" Obviously, human beings are much more sophisticated than, say, amoebas. But t
he basic mechanism is the same: both us and amoebas need to constantly choose how to react to different aspects of the world.

Human brain is very smart, in a sense that it won't just wonder about the object our eyes see above. The brain will also (usually) know that this is a picture, so reacting to it needs to be different than reacting to the same object when encountered it in our own house (a scary thought - at least, for me). But the brain is not perfect, because it can be thrown off track by a variety of factors - both internal and external. By internal factors I mean a host of cognitive biases that affect the way we understand the world and live in it. Even understanding that something is a picture (or any other kind of representation) won't necessarily prevent us from experiencing the same emotions that a "real" thing would trigger.

When our senses perceive something, our brain asks: "What it is? What should I expect? What should I do?" We do not have to actually put these questions into words. Often, our reactions happen much faster than we could put all the sentences above together. On the other hand, in many other occasions we spend a lot of time trying to understand something. Whether our thinking is fast or slow, implicit or explicit, the end goal is the same: to

We can use the phrase "make sense" in two different ways.
1) Objects make sense to us.
2) We make sense of objects.

•We need meanings, we need things to make sense
•“It does not make sense” negative

Guy with tags on his hat in my neighborhood. I am trying to understand: what does it mean?

If an accident happens to me, I will try to make sense of it, although I will also be struggling with its perceived meaninglessness (since the accident will likely to trigger in me a host of negative emotions). Being able to emotionally recover overtime requires that I learn to make sense of what happened to me. Perhaps it was the act of god? Perhaps the universe was signaling something to me? Perhaps it was an opportunity for me to learn and grown, to get a second chance and change my life? If the answer to all these questions will be “no”, I may be miserable till the rest of my life.

"Approach or avoid" - basic meaning shared by all living beings, key for survival (see the source cited in "The Righteous Mind".

Making sense is important for our sanity, but it can lead to simplified explanations. Making sense can be healing because it constructs order out of chaos. For me, making sense means finding complexity. When I encounter an event, person, behavior that troubles me, I don’t makes sense of it in a rush in order to then dismiss quickly. I want to think about it deeply and understand it in a nuanced way (war in Ukraine, Jonny Depp defamation trial).

When a “bad thing” happens, making sense of it is part of our self-protection mechanism. The reason we will choose may be “it’s those assholes’ fault” or “it’s god’s will” or anything in-between.

Add image of the strange black sculpture (troll?) from Connecticut

Meanings are not embedded in objects. If you find an unknown object, you won't know what it is for. By trying to understand what it is, you are trying to get the perspective of people who created or used it.
Sacred object, object of worship (may not be sacred for another person)

Individual meanings: "wicked" musical, red cowboy boots, grandma's ring.

​PAGE IN PROGRESS


​About this project: Start page

Picture
  • About
  • Books
    • Media is us >
      • Principles of communication
      • Micro- and macropower
      • ACE model
      • Description of chapters
      • When conflicts get out of control
    • Hypertexts >
      • Me, looking for meaning >
        • A >
          • Anxiety
          • Am I strong or am I weak?
        • B >
          • Binaries
          • Both sides
        • C >
          • Can I give myself credit for being empathetic?
          • Choice
          • Circumstances
          • Cognitive biases
          • Common sense
          • Communication
          • Content and form of this book
          • Coronavirus and me
          • Culture
          • Cycle of violence
        • D >
          • Depression
          • Do children ask themselves about the purpose of life?
          • Doing the right thing
        • E >
          • Emotional pain
          • Empathy
          • Empathy as a matter of self-preservation
          • Everybody has their struggles
          • Everybody is connected
          • Explain/excuse conflation
        • F >
          • Feelings and emotions
          • Forgetting about your purpose
          • Free will
        • G >
          • Good vs. Bad
        • H >
          • How much do we understand each other?
          • Human brain
          • Human nature
          • Human needs
          • Human thinking
          • Human thinking is nonlinear
          • Hypertext books
        • I >
          • I am an optimist
          • Ideas
          • "I'll never understand!"
          • Individual meanings vs. shared meanings
          • Inner compass
          • Interpretation
          • "It is what it is"
        • J
        • K >
          • Knowing your true purpose
          • Knowledge
        • L >
          • Language
          • List of completed pages
          • Literal vs. nonliteral communication
        • M >
          • Make Sense
          • May I meet this, too, with kindness
          • Meaning as importance
          • Mean and stupid
          • Meaning
          • Meaningless
          • Meaning wars
          • Meaning of life
          • Meaning communities
          • Meanings perceived by animals
          • Meaning-seeking vs. meaning-making
          • Media
          • (Mis)understanding each other's needs
          • My quest for meaning
        • N >
          • Norms
        • O >
          • Objectification
          • On being a scholar
          • On being a writer
          • On being right
        • P >
          • Paradox
          • Parenting
          • Privilege
          • Polarization
          • Postmodern worldview
          • Postmodern philosophy
          • Power
          • Power to see things in a certain way
          • Problem/solution binary
        • Q
        • R >
          • Reality
          • Rhizome in philosophy
        • S >
          • Science, religion and art
          • Self-awareness and empathy of higher order
          • Self-awareness
          • Self-empathy
          • Subjectivity and objectivity
          • Suggested citation format
          • Synesthesia
        • T >
          • "The Death of the Author"
          • The importance of having a purpose
          • Truth
        • U >
          • Understanding ourselves
          • Us and them
        • V >
          • Verbal vs. nonverbal communication
          • Violence in the human nature
        • W >
          • What does it mean to "understand"?
          • What is a text?
          • What we can learn about ourselves from media
          • What is "natural"?
          • What's the point?
          • What will this project become?
          • We hurt others when we are in pain
          • Where do meanings come from?
          • Why am I trying to stay sane?
          • Why do people hurt each other?
          • Why is language so unhelpful?
          • Why do everyday objects make sense?
          • Why do misunderstandings happen?
        • X
        • Y
        • Z
      • Power of meanings // Meanings of power
      • It's not about "them"
  • Editing
    • Me as your editor
    • How I will help you
    • Pricing
    • Privacy policy
  • Blog
  • Workshops
    • Five (easy) steps to become media literate
    • Surviving the polarization vortex
    • Understanding yourself
    • Not enough
  • Learn more
    • Bio
    • Talks and interviews
    • Essays
    • Poems >
      • Stranger
      • Lonely heart
      • Fairy tales
      • Dreams and nightmares
      • Puzzles
      • Moon
      • Seasons
      • Muse
      • Art
      • Sketches
      • Nonsense
    • Educational materials
  • Contact me