Sunny Side Up: Is there any meaning behind the Covid-19 crisis?

Rather than asking why – why Covid-19, why a loved one died – let the experience unfold in its own time and meaning will present itself. Photo: 123rf.com

If you want to find meaning, don’t force it – wait for it

Whenever Freddie Mercury – late singer of British band Queen – was asked about the meaning behind the band’s huge 1974 hit Bohemian Rhapsody, he would frustrate interviewers with vague responses. Often, he would say the song “means whatever you want it to mean”; other times, he would say it’s “about relationships”. Those looking for a definitive explanation behind the timeless classic always came away empty-handed.

Back in my hometown in Scotland, an artist in his 60s has been creating work for over 40 years. The first time I met Hugh Loney, I was stunned when I entered his apartment and found that it was strewn with finished pieces of art and works in progress. As our friendship developed, I began to ask him what art meant to him over the decades. Hugh would usually say that it’s “an expression” and leave it at that. Later, he would say that it’s not the viewer who defines the art but the art that defines the viewer.

What he meant (I think) is that art moves people and moves them in different ways: no two viewers will see exactly the same thing when looking at a painting. It’s a mirror, a reflection – art shows us what’s going on inside ourselves.

One day, Hugh and I were talking about language and how, although it has a great many uses, it often gets in the way of important things in life. We are, said Hugh, too much in a hurry to give meaning to things without fully experiencing what’s going on. It’s in hurrying that we miss the very meaning we’re searching for.

In the last week of April, 2020, he sent me a photo of a recent work that reminded me of the abstract and colourful works of the American painter Jackson Pollock. Initially, I mistook the painting as one of Pollock’s but it was Hugh’s hand behind the gorgeous piece.

He followed up with a message, “Jackson Pollock was asked why he did art. He said it comes from a need. I agree. He was also asked why he didn’t paint nature. He said, ‘I am nature’.

“When you listen to a piece of music with no words, you don’t ask what the music means. Only words make you search for meaning. Don’t ask what a painting means. If you ask, you’re not looking at the painting.

“Does it move you or not? Everything vibrates, so when you come across something the moves you then it is vibrating at the same pitch as you. We all have a pitch or tone – all of them different. Art that resonates with your tone is what gives you that uplifting feeling of harmony. Let that be its meaning.”

So often we rush to attach meaning to our experiences. Why did the relationship end? Why did my loved one die? Why am I here? What’s the meaning of the Covid-19 crisis we’re in?

Whatever answers we try to conjure always seem to fall short. Words can inspire, empower, invoke strong emotions, and move us within with poetic verse. But they can also feel empty.

After a recent conversation about loss, a good friend sent me an article that offered a valuable insight into what we feel like doing with loss and what we should be doing in facing it instead: “Some-times, an efficient inner force wants to step in and make something useful of it all, turn it into ‘fuel for transformation’. But another, quieter, voice urges us to stop. Don’t commodify this loss. Don’t be so hasty to make the events of heartbreak meaningful. Not before the magnitude of what’s been destroyed can be witnessed in its entirety.”

To make sense of any major event, we first have to sit with it. That’s what acceptance means. It’s not that we have to like what’s going on or even want it; but that we recognise it as part of our life and, if we make room for it, more often than not, the meaning is revealed to us rather than something that we find or create.

Whether it’s dealing with Covid-19 and all the challenges it brings, trying to make sense of a loss or simply striving to find meaning in a piece of art or music, the best course is often to let the experience unfold exactly as it intends. If we’re able to sit with what arises, and we pay close attention, insights tend to arise of their own accord.

But when we try to force meaning onto our experiences, they become distorted and we lose any perspective that could have led to understanding. This is why we suffer, because we ask from life what it can’t give us in that moment.

This is something that all good artists understand – it’s why they can be so creative, because they’re able to get out of their own way. Rather than asking “why” something is the way it is, they let the experience unfold in its own time, and from there – if we’re attentive – the meaning presents itself to whoever patiently awaits it.

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Sunny Side Up columnist Sandy Clarke has long held an interest in emotions, mental health, mindfulness and meditation. He believes the more we understand ourselves and each other, the better societies we can create. If you have any questions or comments, email [e-mail]. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.