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Jackie, I agree with your statement that “our need for ‘meaning’ directly affects our actions”.  While Whitman’s representative significance may be difficult to understand, it is the process by which we work to understand his “meaning” that translates on our personal evolutions.  The continuous movement of confronting current and developing new evolutions in science seems to be paralleled in literature.  Perhaps it is not what Whitman writes, but how we use and interpret his significance as a historical source that affects our personal meaning and evolution. 

One of my favorite quotes from Leaves of Grass so far is:

“This is the city…and I am one of the citizens;Whatever interests the rest interests me…politics, churches, news-papers, school,Benevolent societies, improvements, banks, tariffs, streamships, facto-ries, markets,Stock and stores and real estate and personal estate” (59). 

We all collectively share in this interest in our surroundings and a want for understanding our context in relation to our environment. We utilize our collective presents and past as a point of reference for the interpretation (and the evolution) of our own histories.   

 In my post last week I mentioned my confused frustration and abstract impaired-ness (I’m sorry for not being present to explain).  While I still believe I have difficulty in wrapping my mind around abstract profoundness, I am grateful to this course for forcing me to confront my unease. The need to confront meaning within the undefined has forced me to evolve my own way of thinking, my own analytical story.