We are looking for context. Meaning. We want to know that the things we did do matter, that we matter... and that our suffering and efforts meant something - nothing wasted. The narrative has a happy ending when the random set of generic events come together in a system that makes sense to us... with every observable action having meaningful context. The entropy of the world makes sense when everything has a context... As if the universe were a living sentient entity that one could have a real two-way relationship with.
Every conversation we have, every movie we see, game we play, thing we read, in everything we do, we seek a context that promises the potential to affect our future thoughts in a never-ending drive to modify our own internal genetic algorithms. Anything without personal context ultimately renders the experience empty or irrelevant.
We try so very hard to seek that relationship with our universe. It is the only way we know how to interact with our world: as a relationship with a sentient "other". full of context. empathy. with likes and dislikes. To have a relationship with an entity is to have control over how that entity affects us. This control manifests as an identity: the labels that we allow ourselves to wear and the verbs implied by those labels.
We are not looking for truth. We never were. We never are. We are looking for what the truth would promise us: Meaning. Emotional Context. an Identity we can call our own. Understanding. Control. Peace with what we believe to be our own truths. Validation from an "other".
We seek out this context in the various forms of media and interactions that reflect back at us like a Looking Glass... mixing ourselves with ingredients to experience the alchemy that makes us... Gravitating towards the edges of silhouettes that belong to forms worthy of our recognition.
Our emotions, both good and bad, are driven by the context of our experiences. Effort is the currency through which we acquire the validation of these experiences.
