Purpose Archives - Page 7 of 7

Making Meaning Pt 2: Acorns?

February 7, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 2 Comments

In The Soul’s Code, James Hillman wrote that within the acorn exists everything the oak tree will “become.” “Each person bears a uniqueness that asks to be lived and that is already present before it can be lived.” We are the acorns.

Each person bears a uniqueness, sure. But the older I get, the less inclined I am to go along with the rest of that sentence. It just doesn’t map onto the world I see around me. How many people in this world are just not interested in the idea of living out their uniqueness, don’t understand the concept in the first place, or are in no position to devote any attention to it? The majority? That’s my wild guess. So what’s up with that? It seems as though you have to be born into the right set of conditions in order to grasp this concept and then be able to identify and live out your uniqueness. The game is definitely rigged.

Most people, I think, either allow or are forced to let other people or their circumstances determine what kind of life they are going to live. A vast number of people worldwide allow their religious or spiritual beliefs to determine the meaning in—and of—their lives. A far fewer number undertake the quest to discover the uniqueness they are here to live and then manage to live it.

Yet people do want meaning in their lives and they want their lives to mean something, no matter what physical/material conditions they’re living in. Whether or not they can articulate it, meaning is important to almost everyone. The lack of meaning can lead to all kinds of ills—personally, socially, culturally, and globally.

But must we have a supernatural explanation for the source of meaning and the reason it is important to us? I don’t think we do. I don’t think meaning is inherent in anything. I believe we create the meaning in our lives—or we fail to create it. When we create meaning and live lives that are meaningful, we and everyone around us are better off for it. When we fail to create meaning, we are dissatisfied no matter how well off we may be. We know something’s missing; we just don’t know what it is.

According to some sages, life is empty and meaningless—and it’s empty and meaningless that life is empty and meaningless. If that’s true, those of us who were trying to find meaning or figure out our unique purpose for being here have got it backwards. Instead of looking for meaning, we need to decide what is meaningful for us and then go out and create that in the world.

A Little Zen Story

I knew a zen master. I asked him about life. He said, “Life is empty and meaningless.”

I said, “That can’t be so!”

He said, “And it doesn’t mean anything that it doesn’t mean anything.”

And I still said, “No!”

Then he said, “And that gives you the freedom to make it up to mean whatever you want it to.”

And I said, “Ahh!”

Is determining what has meaning easy? No, not for most people. But it can be a much more fascinating, creative, and rewarding game than going on a metaphysical scavenger hunt to find meaning. When all is said and done, it may actually turn out to be the only game in town.

Making Meaning vs. Finding It

February 3, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 2 Comments

Sometimes I think the difference between making (creating) meaning and finding it is the difference between reality and wishful thinking. Sometimes I think it divides the non-believers from the believers. And sometimes I think it might be nothing more than a matter of semantics.

The idea of finding meaning implies to me that meaning, although intangible, is inherent in situations, circumstances, relationships, events, and things. It comes pre-loaded, so to speak, as a hidden file, and it’s our job to locate, download, and access it. As I’ve written before, this sort of thing is not a game I’m particularly interested in playing. It’s like a metaphysical scavenger hunt. And the huge question it raises is if meaning is inherent, by what means did it become part of the stuff of our human lives? This view of meaning pretty much implies the existence of an extra-human force or being as creator of the game of life we all must play.

The Meaning of Our Individual Lives

Both James Hillman, a Jungian psychologist, and Viktor Frankl, an existentialist–as two examples–were convinced there is a reason for our existence and that we are responsible to that reason.

From The Souls’ Code by James Hillman:

Each person enters the world called.

[This book] does speak to the feelings that there is a reason my unique person is here and that there are things I must attend to beyond the daily round and that give the daily round its reason, feelings that the world somehow wants me to be here, that I am answerable to an innate image, which I am filling out in my biography.

You are born with a character; it is given; a gift, as the old stories say, from the guardians upon your birth.

From Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, who survived several years in Auschwitz:

[M]an is a responsible creature and must actualize the potential meaning of his life.

I think the meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected.

The majority…consider themselves accountable before God; they represent those who do not interpret their own lives merely in terms of a task assigned to them but also in terms of the taskmaster who has assigned it to them.

There are those who believe God has very specific plans for them. There are those who believe they are being directed by spirit or the universe to travel particular paths in life and to have certain experiences. The idea that everything happens for a reason may be their attempt at accepting unpleasant circumstances by assigning meaning to them, even if that meaning isn’t yet know. They are all are entitled to their views, of course, and the meaning they find in their lives. But obviously not everyone is religious or even spiritual. Not everyone believes in the existence of a “taskmaster” to whom we are responsible.

I don’t mean to deny the considerable mystery surrounding our existence. To the contrary, I see much that is mysterious and am glad for the mystery. I don’t know all there is to know, and neither does anyone else. Perhaps there actually are celestial guiding forces at work in our lives pushing or urging us in one direction or another.

On the other hand, what if life is empty and meaningless?

More next time.

Everything Happens…

January 6, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 1 Comment

Whenever I hear someone say that everything happens for a reason, I have to bite my tongue. The words are usually uttered either to comfort someone or to explain something that is very painful or difficult and often sudden. But I’ve never been sure how that’s supposed to work. Are we supposed to feel better because there was a reason for what happened? Are we supposed to be less devastated, injured, or cold and hungry (if we were to end up on the street, say)? I’d certainly want to know the reason why that happened.

But the point of the proverb is that we don’t or can’t know the reason, so we just have to trust that there is one. We are also supposed to believe that no matter how awful whatever it is is, it is in our best interest. Our long-term best interest, needless to say, since in the short-term it seems to be a monkey-wrench of major or minor proportion.

But reason implies intent on the part of someone or something—God or maybe the universe that is reputedly poised to align itself with our wishes. So God or the (sentient?) universe intentionally set this up as a means to some end. Since we aren’t privy to knowing why, we’ll just have to stumble along, suck it up Job-like, and wait for the outcome to be revealed.

In the meantime, we can try to wrest some meaning from it.

A Narrative Device?

Theological and philosophical minds much greater than mine have wrestled with this issue and arrived at their own conclusions. A simple explanation is this. Humans began making up stories to explain the world around them as soon as they had the language for it. It’s what we do. We crave explanation and certainty and the logical narrative structure that stories provide. Everything happens for a reason is merely a device for tying up those loose ends in the story that can’t otherwise be satisfactorily explained. Perhaps the reason will be revealed in the sequel.

All any of us can say with certainty is that everything that happens happens. Events we don’t expect may feel random, but there are plenty of here-and-now cause-and-effect explanations for most of what occurs. Those explanations may not be particularly satisfying, however. Bad things happen to good people. And it can be very difficult to come to terms with them when they do. Believing that everything happens for a reason might make someone feel less isolated and victimized and more hopeful that the terrible circumstance will eventually lead to a greater good.

It’s interesting, though, that we don’t use this expression or seek to find the deeper meaning when sudden and inexplicable good fortune befalls us. Shouldn’t the corollary be that unexpected happy events will eventually give rise to painful ones?

Maybe

Have you heard the Taoist story Maybe?

An old farmer worked his crops for many years. His horse ran away one day. His neighbors heard about this and came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said.

“Maybe,” replied the farmer.

The next morning, the farmer’s horse returned, bringing three other wild horses with it. “Wonderful!” the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

The following day, the farmer’s son was trying to ride one of the wild horses but was thrown from it and broke his leg. The neighbors sympathized with the farmer’s misfortune.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The day after that, some military officials came to the farmer’s village to draft young men into the army. Since the farmer’s son’s leg was broken, they did not take him. The farmer’s neighbors congratulated him on how well things had turned out.

“Maybe,” he said.

Is this story implying there was a master plan in place that caused the farmer’s horse to run away, find and return with the wild horse the farmer’s son tried to ride but couldn’t, thereby breaking his leg and exempting himself from the military draft? Of course not.

The meaning of events is determined by the contexts within which they occur. As contexts change or are redefined, our interpretation of the meaning of events changes, too. We can count on the fact that contexts–and perspectives–will change. Does that mean that an event that seems disastrous today will look totally different down the road? Maybe.

Whose Life Purpose Is it, Anyway?

January 3, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 4 Comments

Purpose.com Pumpkinfest (Photo credit: leesean)

Purpose is a term freighted with significance; life purpose even more so. Realizing what our life purpose is—let alone fulfilling it—is so daunting a task that there’s a huge industry out there that wants to help us with it. Because we have to have one, right? If we don’t find it and go after it, life will be empty and our lives will have been wasted. This is tough enough to deal with early on in life, but as we get older it can lead to all kinds of stress and anxiety. If we haven’t found it yet, does that mean we’re failures? Or is there still time to undertake the quest?

Assuming we actually do have a life purpose, why is it so hard to determine what it is for so many people? What’s the big mystery? Whose purpose is it, anyway? If it’s yours, it should not be opaque to you. If it’s part of some universal master plan that requires we race through a series of mazes like rats in order to find the life-purpose cheese, do you really want to play that game? I don’t.

Life mission is another one of those terms, but with a twist that includes coming up with a mission statement for your life. It would be interesting to take a poll to find out how many people have written mission statements for their lives. But I think I already know what the results would be: damn few.

This idea that each of us has a specific life purpose probably derives from humanity’s deep need to understand the much bigger picture: the purpose or meaning of life itself. That isn’t something we can actually know from our particular vantage point, but it’s hard to live with the unknowing. So we search for the meaning of life and try to figure out what our purpose is in having one (a life).

This may seem radical to some, although I know it won’t to others, but if there’s a big-picture purpose to your being alive right now, you probably will never know what it is. If you believe you’ve found it and are living it, congratulations. I mean that sincerely. But if you’re still looking for it, feel free to give up the search. Have a bowl of ice cream. Listen to some music. Call a friend. Enjoy your day.

A Little Zen Story

The Meaning of Our Individual Lives

A Narrative Device?

Maybe

Contact Me