Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More
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Stop Making It Mean Something

Active Wellness Center, Napa, California, USA

May 2, 2026


"Life is empty and meaningless."
... Jean-Paul Sartre
"Life is empty and meaningless, and it's empty and meaningless that it's empty and meaningless."
... 
"The beginning of mastery is that what you are mastering at least comes up for you immediately when you have failed with what you are mastering, that is to say, you consistently immediately catch yourself."
... 
"The world will ask you who you are, and if you don't know, the world will tell you."
... Carl Gustav Jung
This essay, Stop Making It Mean Something, is the companion piece to
  1. What Happened As Distinct From The Story About What Happened
  2. Meanings We Give To A Meaningless Life
  3. The Second Arrow
in that order.

I am indebted to John Taylor who contributed material for this conversation.


"Now look here"  she said, pointing at the pie chart. "This  slice is for what happened. All the other slices are for what you make it mean. This  slice is for making it mean there's danger, this  slice is for making it mean you were wronged, this  slice is for making it mean it's not fair, this slice is for making it mean you're all alone, this slice is for making it mean no one cares, this slice is for making it mean this won't turn out well etc etc. It's totally incessant.

So there's a slice for what happened ... and then there are slices for what you make "what happened" mean. On the pie chart, there's only one slice for what happened. The other seven slices are for what you make it mean. The entire catastrophe  reflected in your experience, comprises eight slices, but only one of them is for what actually happened. You added on the other seven in a misguided attempt to quell the fire by pouring gasoline on the flames.".

Developed from an idea by Laurence Platt Pie Chart Legend Of An Experience

WH:  What Happened
WYMIM:  What You Make It Mean

It's one of those ideas / revelations that alter life going forward irrevocably. She got me to see that anything that happens, is a very small fraction of the total catastrophe as it occurs for me. By far, the greatest preponderance of any experience I have, is what I make it mean, what I dislike about it, my opinions of it, my judgements of it etc etc. It's with not a small measure of chagrin that I realize how entire experiences, particularly those I'd rather not be having, the ones I don't like, are actually made worse by not simply letting them be. What my add-ons and meanings accomplish is to make the "what happened" facts of the matter seem way more significant and troublesome than they actually are.

I started looking at what I do, what my choices are, what the possibilities  are when I'm coming from "what I make it mean", and not simply from the naked "what happened". I looked to see if it serves me well, indeed I looked to see if it serves me at all. I looked to see if I can give it up. I looked to see if I can walk away from it, let it go. I looked to see if I can simply stop  doing it (that's the essential issue).

The question then is: why stop doing it at all? why look into it / inquire into it at all? And the answer (or at least one possible answer I came up with) has got more to do with the possibility of being authentic  than any other answer I came up with. What is  that, this "being authentic"? It's me differentiating who I really am, from who I cast myself to be. And who I cast myself to be, is what I make my life mean.

But there's another issue, a related yet totally separate issue, which is this: the whole idea of making things and events mean something (which is also the whole idea of not  making things and events mean something) is fundamentally flawed since it's not we  who are making the meaning in the first place. Making meaning, an essentially human phenomenon, is always and only on full automatic. We make meaning because we're meaning-making machines. So not  making meaning, is off the table. The truth is we don't even have that option. We can't not  make meaning. It's what human beings do. The closest I'll get to mastering this reflex  (if you will) of making meaning, is to catch myself when I'm doing it. Although that doesn't stop the meaning-making machinery (nothing can, nothing will), whenever I catch myself I notice it calms down somewhat.


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