The Meaning of Symbols
I find entrepreneurs to be a remarkably supersticious folk, much like an athlete and his favorite glove. Although I’d bet money that the vast majority of tech entrepreneurs are atheist or agnostic, I would also bet that many of them have weird quirks about particular symbols and objects in their lives.
Recently I discovered that a good friend of mine has a thing for the infinity symbol. Well, that’s interesting. So do I.
Which brings me to wonder to what extent symbols play a role in our lives. Is there energy in things like that? Can carrying a symbol around really help shape a person’s reality? Or is it just a middleman for the power of our faith and will power? Kind of like belief in God allows people to indirectly believe in themselves. That kind of faith enables people to accomplish things they might “think” they’re too weak to accomplish - but now they can with God’s “support.” Religious faith hence becomes a conduit for a person’s will power. Most people don’t want to acknowledge their personal brilliance any more than they want to stare at the sun directly. Is symbolic faith the same? Middle man, source of energy, both, neither?
I asked my friend and he had a classic response: “I think, therefore I am. I think about infinity, therefore I am.” And yes, he’s been infinitely successful with that approach.
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2007 at 7:23 pm and is filed under Random, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
on September 28, 2007 at 1:44 am Dave wrote:
Interesting… I also have a “thing” for the infinity symbol.
I once made a cool logo that I was going to sell on t-shirts. (I almost got a tattoo of it as well)
0=∞
It would read “Zero Equals Infinity” like a mathematical equation.
Under the logo I had the words “Nothing Is Forever”
So… This is how I thought about the statement “Zero Equals Infinity” or “Nothing is forever”
The endless “Nothing” as in the farthest reaches of deep, empty, outer space… beyond the universe… so far out that light has never reached… This endless vacuum, totally void of all matter and light goes on forever… but that’s about it.
on September 28, 2007 at 3:34 am Lorenz wrote:
hmmm, that’s pretty cool!
on October 1, 2007 at 7:09 am Dana wrote:
This is bizzare… I’ve been wearing an infinity necklace now for the past year…