Everyday Canvas

When Things Don’t Mean What We Think They Mean

Prompt: “Sometimes it's not enough to know what things mean, sometimes you have to know what things don't mean.” Bob Dylan
What is your take on this quote?

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Bob Dylan is famous for thinking and singing in opposites. This may be due to the fact that he was probably trying to incite situational awareness in his listeners. Situational awareness is important because, when we look carefully, there may be both positives and negatives in each event, thing, or person. Not all those positive and negative clues and cues are equal. Missing on them may surprise us in a pleasant fashion or hurt us terribly in the future, so with that idea in mind, we may inject meanings into things that may not be there.

Yet, the cues and clues can play a significant role in the way things shape up in future. Among those, negative clues and cues are much harder to detect since, most of the time, negatives may be absent to the sight, or their meanings can be masterfully hidden or better yet, their implied negative meaning may not be there at all. Even an expert in any given area where he is experienced may be unaware of all cues and clues if in his past he hasn’t seen such stuff or even similar ones. On the other hand, a few suspicious people may read negatives into a given situation or thing.

For example, even logo designs are chosen by experts who are experienced in eliciting emotional responses in their customers. Some logos, however, may seem like they have a hidden meaning, and that may have escaped the eyes of such experts. We are all aware of Hillary Clinton’s election logo, which shows the letter of her first name but the logo looks like a hospital sign. We all know there is no hidden meaning in there, but to a foreigner, the case might be a different one.

And sometimes, a thing or a word is just what it is in its concrete meaning. A triangle, for example, is only a shape. If when I am talking about the triangle shape of my garden and someone else takes it as if I meant a love triangle, he or she would be mistaken. That someone may have known the meaning of the word triangle but he also had to know what the triangle in question didn’t mean.