Planetes

A fragment about how meaning is made between fellow wanderers.

Dear traveler,

Before we start making sense,
we must talk about meaning.

You already know this,
but let's say it out loud anyway:
Meaning is known.
Felt.
Valued as a treasure—
a beautiful, glowing gem.

We collect it.
And when we find some, we clutch it.
Press it close to our chest and hold on.
To keep it safe.

The meanings we gather
form a field of stars
that guide us on our journeys.
They arc a quiet internal coherence—
between the ache of lostness
and the pull of direction.

Meaning exists on many levels.
From the existential tremors
reverberating through us on a cosmic scale,
to the syntactic click of a word
in conversation with a dear friend.

It’s the moment something lands.
Connects. Resonates.
Meaning can be a speck of dust in your pocket,
a slow pulse at the edge of your sight,
or an infinitely distant constellation
that beckons between your thoughts.

But here’s the thing:
Meaning cannot be transferred.
It cannot be imposed.
It can only be created—locally.

It is fundamentally an act of absorption.
Of integration.

Meaning is created from friction.
Impact—
The sound of an impulse of information
making contact with your awareness.

You can sense it as streaks in the sky,
burning claws across your mesosphere.
Some points reach the ground,
only as dust.
Some simply settle into place.
And yet others— announce themselves
with the cataclysmic confidence of a mourning god.

I will not be so presumptuous
to think I can give you meaning.
I can only offer the account of another traveller.

One who has gathered fragments.
Clutched a few too tightly.
Let others fall through open fingers.

I can share the fragments of thought
that have shaped me,
sketches of the strange constellations
that call on me,
sprawled across my sky.

Some may spark against your skin.
Some may pass by unnoticed.
Some may arrive long after reading—
like light from a distant star finally reaching your night.

But what you make of them
is not mine to decide.
My words are out of my hands
when they reach you.
What you feel is yours.

What flares,
what fizzles,
what settles quietly into orbit—
is not mine to know.

But if, somewhere
in this constellation of words,
something stirs—
some flicker of friction,
some pulse of recognition—
then we are already co-creating.

Not sense.
Not certainty.
But resonance.