Massimo,

The way I would tie together this search for meaning and how it is best resolved through community is that we are signal seeking creatures. We are constantly distilling out information from our environment, then further focusing and organizing it.

Yet the context from which the signal is derived, the noise, is what creates the basis of this signal. It is the network from which we have extracted the node.

We seek “truth,” but any such insight is a function of its context and situation.

So while we are constantly distilling out and often objectifying concepts, ideas, things, etc, the most meaning and purpose they have is contextual. Much as an organism is both part of and product of the ecosystem in which it exists.

For example, we have been distilling culture down to the pursuit of money, because it is a very effective and concise “signal” in all the noise around us.

Though money, as a medium of exchange, is largely a contract, with one side an asset and the other a debt, that enables our mass society to function, so when we try extracting this “signal” from the noise, it’s like taking blood from a body, rather than having it circulate, like it’s supposed to. Then eventually these huge piles of money that have been extracted and piled up, become worthless, as the organic economy collapses.

So the yin needs its yang. The node needs its network. The individual needs its society and its environment.