Half Glass

People argue about meanings all the time. Is someone a conservative, or a liberal, or a moderate? Is it cold, or just cool? What people do not appreciate is that words are just tokens. A token is a substitue, a stand-in for some other thing. In the case of words, it is an idea, a concept. If I say "dog", you might think of canis domesticus the common pet. If you are a carpenter, you might think of a device used to secure wood on the workbench. It depends on the context. That just means we have already established a bias toward one of the several possible meanings of a word. In other situations, the context is releated to our life, our experiences. But each of us gets a different life.
I heard two people arguing about human nature. One said human nature is base and primitive, but we strive for the good and devine. The other said the opposite, that we are born good, but we fall into disgrace. It seems to me that they both said the same thing, except the term "human nature" was used differently. We have two sides, one instinct, the other holy. Both are human nature. The words get in the way of the meaning.
Is the glass half empty or half full? Bill Cosby got an interesting answer from his grandmother: That depends on whether you're drinking or pouring. I have a simpler answer: Yes. Both.