Symbols

I finally got around to watching the movie Michael Clayton. In the beginning of the movie, George Clooney’s character gets out of his car because he sees three horses in the distance standing together on a hill. They seem to recall something inconceivable to him: an illustration from a book that his colleague was reading right before he died.

Clooney quietly approaches the horses, stands before them, inhales the silent morning air and looks into their eyes: What chalice is this? What point of life?

It seems incomprehensible that he saw the horses in the far off distance from the road, yet there is no way that he could have missed them. In that moment, they carry great meaning to him: the horses are simultaneously Clooney’s destination, and then a path that he must follow.

His car suddenly explodes on the road behind him. The three horses scatter; they have saved his life. But even more, the horses’ presence somehow confirms what Clooney suspected: that his colleague was murdered.

Clooney flees into the woods.

Conceivably, everything in the world has been a symbol to someone at some point in time: every lamp post, every building, a pair of blue French doors, a dock, weeping willows, a gold tulle skirt, the Sesquiplicarius, three horses on a hill. Every object and every living thing that creates this world awaits someone’s comprehension of its unique significance. Some of these meanings vary, while others may converge.

That the sum of all of these symbols is our world suggests that the world is a symbol itself, and maybe beyond us, the universe. If we consider that the world carries meaning, must we then accept that this significance existed before us? For arguably, all of mankind’s creations, all of our varied contraptions are merely compulsive interpretations of the secret pillars of our universe.

To some, including Clooney in Clayton, three horses standing quietly on a hill imply the existence of something far greater than any of us.