Such liberation can begin for any of us as part of critical moments wherein we come to discover, doubt, and question meaning perspectives. That happens through some sort of experience that brings us into cognitive dissonance with that meaning perspective. We come across something through a direct or learning experience that belies our meaning perspective so blatantly, loudly, and powerfully we feel the dissonance between experience and our meaning perspective. Given that the experience happens to us directly and tangibly, we can feel a spontaneous, if slightly startled, need to question the abstract meaning perspective in dissonance with concrete experience.
Meaning perspectives generally operate like prejudices in the form of a syllogism. All A equals B is the major premise. All C equals B is the minor premise. C equals A is the conclusion. This often works quite well as a heuristic, a way of problem solving based on past experience and knowledge. That's quite helpful. All red traffic lights mean stop. This light is red. The light means stop. All bottles with a skull and crossbones contain poison. This bottle shows a skull and crossbones. This bottle contains poison. We take such a valid syllogism as universally and permanently true thus a meaning perspective. When we see something that fits the syllogism, we immediately know with absolute certainly how that entity fits into the world or at least our world in a particular way. These meaning perspectives represent an unquestioned truth until such time as the question arises from some critical moment in our lives.
All green food is disgusting we often learn as a child. We grow up and deprive ourselves of green food. At some point, we feel a real hunger or a sense of politeness, and we eat some green food that tastes wonderful in spite of our previous perspective. We can say that this green food comes to us as an exception to the meaning perspective, but that doesn't work well because the power of the meaning perspective, of the syllogism, comes in the absolute nature of the premise. If not all of something, the premise, the syllogism has little or nothing to say. It becomes so weak as a rule that we feel we have to make up our response to green food as we go along, respond to it directly and openly. In that way, we may choose to abandon our now questioned meaning perspective for a new conscious perspective, one that will try green food and respond to its own, immediate qualities. Our mind has opened to direct experiences of green food and is no longer limited by the meaning perspective that keeps us from experiencing reality as it actually comes to us.
In such a way, we can feel liberated from a meaning perspective. Such liberation brings us back to the becoming self because it brings us back to as direct a perception of reality as we encounter it. That liberation and newly freed perception reconnects us with the working definition of self:
The self exists as a conscious, independent entity which perceives the world, takes information from that perception, learns from that information, makes choices based on that learning, and acts freely on those choices. The self experiences the results of those choices, accepts the responsibility of those choices and results, and the process begins again.
The liberation from a meaning perspective takes us back to our "conscious, independent entity which perceives the world" and away from an entity tied to the unquestioned past and its perceptions.
This liberation may sound quite simple, and it is simple in itself, but it doesn't happen simply in itself. Liberation can have its complications. It depends on our attitude toward the liberation. If we want to keep whatever it is from which we also want to get liberated, things can get very complicated indeed.[80]
We often feel our meaning perspectives form an essential part of our identity, and we feel very uneasy and resistant to any question about our identity. Our sense of identity gives us a sense of our substance in the world. Identity imbues us with a form in ourselves, and we feel that form makes us visible, real, and purposeful. We may not want to get liberated from what feels like such an essential element of our life as an individual. As with our ego, we find in our identity a useful part of our complete being. Both identity and ego work to allow our whole being to function and survive in the world which can constantly threaten our essential vulnerability. This vulnerability stems from our desire for unconditional positive regard which we do not often encounter. Instead, we find what feels like judgment and assault because of that need, so we live with our identity and our ego for substance and protection. Identity makes us feel like somebody, and our ego protects that somebody. We see ourselves in a certain way, identity, and we build bastions to protect that identity, ego.
These entities exist as valid and valuable parts of our overall being. Not to establish any form of trinity, our whole being consists of these three entities: the self, our identity, and our ego. Our ego and our identity may exhibit many disturbing manifestations, but the whole being remains a whole being in any case.
The problem comes when identity identification with a meaning perspective motivates ego to defend that meaning perspective through self-justification. Ego simply denies the validity of the direct experience, "This experience was just a freak thing," or rationalizes it away: "Everybody does it." In that way, our identity can go on with its possession of the meaning perspective that keeps it limited but feeling somehow more secure as an identity. Identity exists through having meaning perspectives rather than living through being and experiencing the becoming self and living our whole being where it forms a valuable and valued part.