Get My Meaning?

Over the past five years writing this blog I haven't had any specific goal in mind. It's just an old guy's brain doing what brains do. One thing they do is figure out what things mean. But if there are no such problems to solve, they make up random stuff like the moving patterns your visual cortex generates just before you fall asleep in the dark. That receding star field (or whatever plotless movie is playing) has no meaning. Meaning requires intention, and if I was intending something, I wouldn't be going to sleep. Right now, just after lunch, I am almost asleep. This is my brain in neutral, generating meaningless patterns. Zzzzzzzzz. Zzzzzzzzz. Zzzzzzzzz. Zzzzzzzzz.

OK, now I'm awake. While I was asleep, the old bean just kept on making up nonsense. I dreamed I was at an outdoor market where a vendor was selling chestnuts, the edible kind, American chestnuts not horse chestnuts. I made the mistake of asking for a bag full before checking the price. (I can tell that was nonsense because I have never eaten a chestnut, don't care if I ever do, and wouldn't buy them unless they were the only food in sight and I was starving.) After I had them in my hand and had eaten one, I saw that they were priced at $1000. The vendor was surprised to see me eat one. He explained that this variety of chestnut was rare and he was selling them as heritage seed. Rather than admit I had made a foolish mistake, I offered my credit card as though nothing were amiss. Crazy dream. Nonsense, right? What was I saying about random thoughts before I drifted off?

Now that I am awake, I have the delusion that there might be something meaningful in the dream, even though it was unintentional. How do we get from arbitrary randomness to intention and thence to meaning? Well, we make it up, don't we !

To make it easy, here's what the dream could mean. Pick one or more of these options or add your own in the comment section below.
(a) Dennis thinks way too much about food.
(b) Dennis is not careful how he spends money.
(c) Dennis would pay anything to avoid looking foolish.
(d) The value of an object is all in one's head, so decide what you are willing to pay and stick to it.
(e) Circumstances can alter the value of things.
(f)  Dennis had writer's block and is trying way too hard to write a piece for his blog.

The truth is actually (f) but (e) is calling me. It hints at an ending to the dream, and the problem with dreams is they almost never have satisfactory endings. Endings are the products of the wakeful, intentional mind. Here is a possible ending which is unfolding in imagination as I write, wide awake and intentional.

I took the remaining chestnuts home and presented them to Dorothy a little sheepishly because I had spent the grocery budget for the month and we were going to survive on stone soup until the next payday. Being a wise wife and a thoughtful mother, she turned the purchase into a teachable moment. Supper that night was a surprisingly tasty potato soup. and for dessert, chestnuts dipped in chocolate sauce. She explained to the kids that this was going to be the best dessert ever because each chestnut cost $100. So they had a choice; they could eat them or plant them and see what came up. The kids chose to eat the chocolate sauce and plant the chestnuts. After supper we all went for a walk along the trail and planted chestnuts as we went. 

Years passed, kids grew up, chestnuts were forgotten, and climate change wreaked havoc with agriculture. Stone soup was looking like a feast for many people, and they would have been happy to add a potato if they could get one. Biologists were looking for alternative crops that would survive the new normal and had turned to chestnuts as a potential super-food. There was one catch. The edible American chestnut was nearly extinct because of its susceptibility to fungal blight. Watching The Nature of Things one night, Dennis saw the chestnut documentary and thought back to his ill-advised purchase and the planting trek that had followed that skimpy supper so long ago. Came the weekend, he and Dorothy took the grandkids on that same walk to see what had come from the thousand dollar nuts. What they found would eventually make them celebrities. One of the chestnut trees had thrived, apparently a blight resistant mutant. Delighted and excited, they collected all the nuts they could find and took them to the chestnut research station at the University of Guelph. 

To make a long story a bit longer, by the time there were great-grandchildren dealing with climate change, chestnuts were a staple part of their diet, used in everything from soup to burgers, and Great-grandpa Dennis had become a legend.

There, that's how nonsense becomes intention becomes meaning. Get my meaning? Tell me about it.