June 28th, 2016 "Time and Space"

A client of mine recently asked me to interpret the following proverb for her:

Time and space have no meaning, just as your conscious thoughts are meaningless.

I felt quite challenged to explain exactly what this "proverb" was trying to say, but I gave it a shot. Let me know if you agree with me.

In this case I would interpret the proverb as: Time and space have no meaning in and of themselves. It is only the meanings that we humans attribute to them that imbue them with meaning. Humans give meaning to their world, meaning is not inherently "out there."  

Similarly, the thoughts that we think consciously are just a small fraction of our unconscious 

thoughts. We have millions of thoughts that we think (and perceive and feel) unconsciously. We are constantly bombarded by millions of perceptions, feelings, thoughts and experiences, the sheer number of which is perhaps unquantifiable. Human neurology is structured in such a way that we are protected from "overwhelm" by these unquantifiable experiences.  Our conscious minds work by screening out (or "filtering" out) the huge majority of thoughts, feelings and perceptions that we experience constantly on an unconscious level. If we didn't filter out this huge unconscious majority of our experience we would hardly be able to function because we would be so overwhelmed by the massive overload of unconscious thoughts. So these millions of "unregistered" thoughts end up living in our unconscious minds, and they become the fodder for our dreams, as Freud asserted. (Although Freud's definition of the unconscious mind was quite a bit narrower and is a bit outdated by today's understanding of the "unconscious" mind.)

Perhaps another way to interpret the "proverb" is simpler: Time and space represent surface aspects of our external awareness. Conscious thoughts represent a surface aspect of our internal awareness. Therefore both are meaningless, relatively, when compared to the totality of our awareness, both conscious and unconscious.

I think a person could drive herself a little bit bonkers trying to figure out what some of the denser proverbs actually are trying to say. Often there are multiple interpretations so you can't assume that the interpretation you've come up with is the most accurate.  

Thoughts anyone?