We often confuse truth with meaning. But they aren’t the same. Truth, especially in science, is external. It’s measurable. Repeatable. It exists whether you believe in it or not.

Meaning is different. It’s internal. Lived. It’s not something you discover like a buried fact. It’s something you make, like a poem.

Ursula K. Le Guin put it beautifully: “Science describes accurately from outside, poetry describes accurately from inside. Both celebrate what they describe.”

Meaning then is poetry. It’s art. It’s what we build from our own experience and emotion. It’s shaped in conversation, in solitude, in moments that don’t fit neatly on a spreadsheet.

Rilke writing to a young poet said: “Go into yourself. Find the place from which your life flows.” That’s not abstract advice. That’s a blueprint.

The world will throw distractions at you. Offer approval. Opinions. Data. But they won’t tell you what’s meaningful to you. That job’s yours.

And it is a job. Meaning doesn’t show up like a lightning bolt. You have to live the questions, as Rilke put it. You make the thing, a poem, a sketch, a song, not to explain but to feel your way through the dark. That’s how you find inner truth.

But let’s not confuse it with outer truth. Outer truth is empirical. It applies to all of us. Inner truth is personal, and sometimes messy. Which is why empathy matters. You don’t have to agree with someone’s inner truth. You just have to honor their right to sing it.

Even if the song isn’t yours.

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