In the middle of a pandemic, life continues with its challenges, excitements, and disappointments. It gives us time focus on what is important and what is not, and to realign proprieties to coincide with what we consider meaningful.
What Makes Life Meaningful? From a distance of six feet, I conversed with a neighbor who confessed retiring from a lucrative career she never enjoyed. For forty years she went to her law office rather than risk a cut in salary to do something more meaningful. The woman remained trapped in a self-made cage, with little time for anything else. Now that she no longer works, she travels and takes walks, but her wonderings are unfocused. She stays in a meaningless vacuum while the world spins around her.
There are people who search for meaning throughout life and never find it. One reason is that they stay focused on what they think is missing rather than what really matters to them. I’ve counseled men and women who are bored at work, yet rather get involved in meaningful activities during their leisure time, they escape to computer games and YouTube videos. By equating how they earn a living with the essence of who they are, they remain unfulfilled. The two are not the same.
It is only in the last fifty years that the question of life’s meaning became a distinct field of philosophy. Some philosophers needed a definition. “What are you talking about?” they wanted to know, while others immediately began asking if meaning comes from achievements, a moral character or having loving relationships? They were curious about the role of creativity, of God, and of a willingness to accept the situation you find yourself in.
Some investigated spirituality while others delved into existentialism which provides greater license to follow desires? They asked if meaning involves satisfying sexual yearnings or does it only have do with procreation? To live meaningfully do you focus on personal goals or those of family and society? Answering these questions these takes thought. It seems bizarre that it takes a pandemic to gift us the time to think about profound subjects.
Many seekers believe “meaning” changes with age and maturity causing the need for periodic queries to take place throughout life. Meaning may not be the same for a twenty-year-old starting a career as it is for a seventy-year-old ending one. For others, like my father, there is a consistency that never varies. Though my father did not attend religious services as an adult, he was a deeply religious man who always acted with a sense of moral obligation.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy organizes thoughts about the meaning of life by describing four ways contemporary philosophers approach the subject. Though the digest that follows lacks many of the pro and con discussions, it gives a taste of what they say.
a) The meaning of “meaning” (getting consensus around the word “meaning” has not been easy. Is it best understood biologically? Psychologically? Are some periods during your life more meaningful than others? Happiness, purpose, and worthwhileness are good endeavors to have, but see them as distinct from what is meaningful.)
b) Supernaturalism – Relationship with spiritual realm
b1–Soul-centered relationships (how you live outlives your death: If life is to be meaningful then do something worth doing that makes a difference to the world. Justice rather than wickedness must flourish. Most see having a soul as being immortal.)
b2–God-centered relationships (where God is an all knowing: God is all-good, an all-powerful spiritual being grounding the physical universe with a purpose. The meaning in life is to fulfill God’s purpose.)
c) Naturalism – Science
c1–Subjectivism (science is within the mind: Meaning of life varies from person to person. Live has meaning if you believe something, seek it out, and reach your goal. Becoming engrossed in whatever you are doing provides meaning ) or
c2–Objectivism (views science from a physical perspective independent of the mind: Meaning comes from morality and creativity with out the need for a God’s direction. Without a worthwhile project there is no meaning. If you take up a worthwhile project and don’t care about it then it too is meaningless.)
d) Nihilism (pessimism) – (Life’s meaning can not be obtained and does not exist:
People are inherently dissatisfied. For a life to matter we must add value to the world but we can’t, for everything in the physical world already has value and nothing we do will make a difference. The universe is millions of years old, so what does our 75 or so years matter. Bringing people into existence is immoral if it would harm them.
The struggle people have finding meaning can be helped by exploring the above paths. Once you understand where you fall on the spectrum, the rest falls more easily into place. For instance, an in-law of mine was a God-centered man who put everything on the shoulders of a supernatural being instead of himself. No matter what he did, whether he like it or not, he was at peace in knowing he lived within God’s plan. He remained stress free through economic hardships, times of war, and illness, certain he was in the hands of a loving creator.
A taxi driving friend is a subjective scientist type who found meaning in a different way. He sees himself in the center of the universe looking out at life through a prism of what he knows and experienced. He is fascinated by his customer’s stories, because they also see through a unique lens. He tries to get inside their heads so he can add their insights to his understanding of life. My friend meditates daily to control his involuntary nervous system in order to bend it to his will.
On a trip to Kenya, I roomed with a soul-centered Hindu. This lovely young woman grew up reading the Bhagavad Gita as her source of wisdom. She believes in reincarnation, and engages in good deeds, confident she will be reborn in a higher realm in the next life. Without using threats, promises, or coercion her religion enjoins her to act as she thinks best, which she does with grace and compassion. She meditates to find center so she will know herself before reaching out to others.
My Niahlist friends who say there is no meaning to life, agree that there can be purpose and say that we are better off creating our own. Nazi concentration camp survivor, Viktor Frankl wrote form his observations that people are not motivated by pleasure as Freud thought or power, as Adler believed, but by meaning. “The point,” said Frankl, ‘”is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.” He advises people to 1) Experience reality by interacting authentically with the environment and with others. 2) Give something back to the world through creativity and self-expression, 3) Change your attitude when faced with a situation or circumstance that you cannot change.
My thoughts about the topic continue to evolve. When younger, I was God-centered and at another stage, I was a Nihalist. Today I’m more of an Objective Naturalist. It is why it is easier for me to research and write a non-fiction book than a fictional one. As a housewife scrubbing toilets, mother comforting my child’s hurt, hostess serving friends, or business woman closing deals, I felt what I did had meaning when I was fully engaged in doing my best. As an activist, author, and a-whatever-else, I consciously try to make the world around me better. I strive to understand complexity in society, workings of the physical world, and to grasp psychological and biological aspects of the mind. But, meaning only comes from doing something with the information I accumulated. At this stage in life, I find meaning when transfering what I’ve learned to the next generation.
I wrote this article because of the seekers who visited my “Do You Need a Mother Booth” at Shift Music Festival, for clients who came to my office wanting to end their lives, and for older friends and stay-at-home parents who say they are bored and live a meaningless existence. Living without meaning can be as stressful as having fears caused by a pandemic. If you are the type of person who finds that being alone with your thoughts feels like too much to bear, try to go a little deeper within to ask yourself why. You’ve been given the gift of time to find the answer and to reorient your goals in a meaningful way.
References:
Metz, T. (2013) The Meaning of Life. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/life-meaning/
Burton, N. (2018) What is the Meaning of Life? Psychology Today. retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201803/what-is-the-meaning-life