Can meaning exist without personal experience?

Some things you look at
and you already know what they mean.

A symbol.
An object.
A form that represents something.

You’ve heard about it.
You’ve learned it.

You can recognize it.

But that doesn’t mean it’s yours.

You notice this in small moments.

When you hold something
and it means nothing to you.

And in others,
when the same thing
starts to mean something.

Not because it changed.

But because something changed in you.

Meaning is not something that is passed on.

It doesn’t move from one hand to another.

It grows.

Through moments.
Through experience.
Through the way something stands beside you over time.

And somewhere in that,
without even realizing it,
it becomes yours.