Meaning is the modulation of intent. A semiotic agent’s work is never done – not unless he can stop making sense long enough to be the sense he makes.
Life is inherently restless, far from equilibrium, yet yearning for it; the tension between its twin tendencies drives the cycle of birth-and-death. This is another dimension hidden in the pun of Heraclitus:
τῷ τόξῳ ὄνομα βίος, ἔργον δὲ θάνατος.
The name of the bow is life, but its work is death.Kahn LXXIX, D. 48
Bios is the older, poetic word for “bow” (toxon), and except for an accent mark not written in Heraclitus’ time, is identical to bios, the word for “life.”
… for in the byways of high improvidence that’s what makes lifework leaving …
Finnegans Wake, 12