A Petty Person’s Wisdom for More Petty People

Meaning is correlated
With the framing of the game—
Boundary’s necessary

For lensing the attention.
We might suggest the framing,
Even the birth of the game,

Preceded making meaning,
As glass craftwork preceded
Microscopes and telescopes,

But we’ve really no idea,
And intuition, ignis
Fatuus, is no good guide.

On its own, attention makes
Something like meaning, according
Some phenomena greater

Importance than all the rest,
And in this sense meaning needs
Neither persons nor language,

Nor any form of the game.
But the game, the game as framed,
The walled artificial world,

Focused attention and play
Within a simulation
Aware of itself as such,

The beginning of wisdom,
Theater, and convictions
Attendant upon wisdom.