ABSTRACT
The formation of meaning begins very early in human life, conceivably even before birth. The first associations of experiences as pleasing or frightening, to be sought or avoided, are already rudimentary meanings. Understanding builds on these foundations. The emotional structure of meanings, especially, begins to form in a time of feeling and perception before words, so that the origin of many of our deepest fears and most passionate desires are obscure to us, and all we can articulate is their transformed and elaborated development in later life. But these first responses provoke the foundation of a structure from which motives and learning stem, and every purpose that develops or matures later will build upon it. The interactions of our earliest years point us already towards the kinds of relationship which will seem relevant to us. Of all these interactions the most important for the development of the meaning of our lives as social beings is a child’s attachment to its parents.
