MEANING DEFICIENCY & DISTORTION

Another mass murderer and another 11 people dead. It seems to be a weekly thing. Some grabs a gun, jumps into a car, wields a butcher knife, plants a bomb and boom! 10 to 100 or more people are murdered in one go. Then arises the cry that we have heard over and over, “Why?” “Why do these things happen?” “Why can’t we stop them?”

Then arises all of the band-aid cures: limit guns, put up concrete barriers, install metal detectors, march in protests, blame the other political party, and on and on it goes. Yet these are band-aid cures because regardless of how many gun laws we pass, the criminals still get them. No matter how many early warning signals we publish and no matter how many signs we print, “If you see something, say something,” the mass murders continue.

Then some conclude, “It’s the deranged persons themselves! They are the problem.” And yes, that’s true— the gun was shot by a person, the car that drove into a crowd was driven by a person, the radicalized fanatic swinging the knife was a person, so also a person put the bomb together and set it off. Yet while that’s a true answer, it still does not give us something actionable to do about it. Plus all “derangement” is not the same. The derangement of one individual is not the derangement of the next individual.

Further, what do we mean by “derangement?” One is a fanatic; one is mentally ill with a personality disorder or something, another suffers from a socio-pathology of some sort. One thinks God is speaking to him, another believes he can be the great Savior of his brand of society, another is pissed at getting fired, another takes the “News” literally and seriously and thinks such and such Senator or Representative is the mouthpiece of Satan. Derangement comes in so many different forms!

So, what gives? Meaning. The meanings that each of these persons has created about something is the problem. Each has constructed an understanding from their way of thinking and that understanding, as the meaning they made, that frame is the problem. And truth be told— they are as much a victim of that meaning as those who they inflict it upon. That is, they as human beings are not the problem, the meaning they construct—that’s the problem.

In Neuro-Semantics when we say that the frame is the problem— we are identifying that we humans live our lives by ideas and the quality of the ideas matter. You can think erroneously and create really stupid, dysfunctional, toxic, and pathological ideas. All ideas are not equal. Some are life enhancing and some are life destroying. Ideas matter. The mental map that you construct can either make your life a paradise of pleasure, growth, contribution, empowerment, etc. Or, your mental map can put you into an emotional hell that will destroy yourself and others.

On the Meaning Scale or Axis, there is the quality of the meanings that you are making. Are they accurate? Do they fit the structure of the territory beyond your skin so that you can use them to navigate the experiences that you want? Do they bring out your best? Do your meanings inspire you— put hope, determination, persistence, and resilience in you? Do your meanings excite you every day and get you out of bed and make you a better person for it?

If not, you probably have some meaning deficiency, and like vitamin deficiency, you need to up your dose of daily meanings. If your meanings leave you bored and depressed some of the time— wake up and refresh your meanings. Learn to be a high quality meaning-maker!

If your meanings are disorienting you so that you are becoming more and more disconnected to people, unable to hold a job, in conflict with others, etc.— you probably are suffering from some meaning distortion. And you probably think this is okay! Why? Because of the confirmation bias. You, like all of us, have a bias to look for and confirm what you already believe. So you will not even be aware of the danger you are in. You will justify, rationalize, and intellectualize your way from being able to see the frames which are creating your problems. It’s a vicious catch-22.

Solution— begin with the realization that you are a map-maker and you are an especially fallible map-maker! It’s not an easy thing to accept, but it is true. Your meaning-making skills are liable to make a thousand kinds of mistakes every day. A thousand! After all, your brain is a function of your eating, sleeping, drinking, exercising ... and it can be disastrously affected by lesions, viruses, accidents, and on and on. Stop implicitly trusting your thoughts. Set the frame: “I could be wrong and not know it.” Ask yourself, “What am I missing?” Give up the adolescence need for “confidence,” and be a scientist for a change.