INTRODUCTION
Memory, Meaning, and the Language of Symbols
Everything exists in motion. Change is not an interruption of life. It is the condition.
Attention shifts. Feelings rise and fall. Days reorder us in ways we don’t always notice. And yet, amid this constant movement, something holds. We recognize ourselves. We remember.
Memory is how continuity forms. Not as a fixed record, but as an active process shaped by sensation, feeling, and repetition. What lingers does so because it mattered—because it registered. Over time, these impressions gather into patterns. Through them, experience becomes intelligible. Through them, a sense of self takes shape.
Without memory, experience would arrive and vanish without consequence. With it, meaning accumulates.
Much of memory operates quietly. Some moments can be recalled and named; others remain as tendencies—habits of thought, bodily responses, emotional tone. Together, they influence how we interpret what is happening now and what feels possible next. This lexicon approaches memory not as something to control or optimize, but as a field to attend to—the ground from which symbols arise.
Symbols are one of the ways the mind stabilizes experience without fixing it. They appear where explanation alone is insufficient: in dreams, images, rituals, and stories. A symbol does not demand resolution. It holds multiple meanings at once, allowing uncertainty and coherence to coexist. Because of this, symbols invite reflection rather than answers.
Our inner lives are rarely linear. We move through opposing states, from certainty and doubt, attachment and release, effort and rest. Growth does not come from eliminating these tensions, but from learning to remain present within them. Finding capacity for that kind of patience is the effort of a lifetime. Generations of humans have managed the herculian task with the assistance of tools. Symbolic systems offer shared forms through which complexity can be engaged without as much personal discomfort.
There is no urgency here.
No conclusion to reach.
Only attention.
Practices such as ritual and myth provide structure not to reduce experience, but to give it somewhere to land. Symbols function as containers—spaces where what feels unresolved can be held long enough to change. Over time, confusion may soften. What felt contradictory may begin to relate.
Alchemy offers a quiet metaphor for this process: not escape, but refinement. The work or game play of OTHERWIS3 is not meant to discard what is difficult, but to enable us to stay with it—allowing raw experience to reorganize into insight, awareness, or care. What transforms does so gradually, through repeated contact in a gentle card game. This lexicon exists to support that kind of engagement.
The symbols gathered here are not instructions. They are lenses. Each offers a way of seeing that can subtly shift perception, revealing patterns across memory, imagination, and feeling. Meaning emerges through encounter, not enforcement.
These symbols and archetypes form the foundation of OTHERWIS3, a card game designed for reflection, perspective-shifting, and gentle inquiry—especially in moments when the day loosens its grip and thought begins to slow. This lexicon is a companion to the game: something to open without pressure, return to intuitively, and explore at your own pace.
The work honors human creativity. We use contemporary tools—including AI—as extensions of curiosity and research, not replacements for attention or insight. Meaning does not arise from process alone. It arises from care, presence, and lived experience. The voices and labor of independent artists remain central to this project, shaping both its form and its sensibility.
This lexicon is not a destination. It is a map—meant for wandering.
Let the symbols surface what they will. Let them resonate, resist, or remain unclear. Notice how your body settles as you read. Notice what stays with you later. Over time, patterns may begin to appear…not as answers, but as familiarity. And in that familiarity, a quieter form of understanding often takes hold.
AI Research & Assistance Credits
This content was researched with the help of Perplexity. Perplexity AI. (2024). [AI search and answer assistant] Available from https://www.perplexity.ai
This content was developed with the assistance of ChatGPT. OpenAI. (2024). [AI language model] Available from https://openai.com/chat
This content was improved with the help of Grammarly. : Grammarly. (2024). [Writing assistant software]. Available from https://www.grammarly.com
Images are compositions created in Adobe Photoshop from AI generated elements. Each image holds unique seeds inspired by real life experience with strangers in L.A.
MidJourney. (2024). [AI-powered image generation]. Available from https://www.midjourney.com
ComfyUI. (2023). [AI-powered image generation interface for Stable Diffusion]. Available fromhttps://github.com/comfyanonymous/ComfyUI
