OUR QUEST FOR MEANING

It is not enough for us to live for the moment. This is the insistence of the “Be Here Now” faith that sensual enjoyment can satisfy us if we could just tune into the Now long enough. However, our experience doesn’t want to cooperate with this common assumption.

I enjoy the scent of flowers. Such a scent can take me beyond the flower itself. However, the enjoyment of the scent can only last for a moment. For some strange reason, it fades along with our sensual enjoyment of this world. Even a sunset or a mountain scene loses its appeal within time, almost like the final note of an ejaculation, which leaves us wondering, “What’s next?”

It seems that we are designed for something beyond the sensual. We yearn for meaning – an affirmative definition of our place in this world and a truth to guide our steps. The late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Abraham Heschel wrote:

·       “It’s not enough for me to be able to say ‘I am’; I want to know who I am and in relation to whom I live. It is not enough for me to ask questions; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?”

It seems that Rabbi Heschel had identified a basic human need. It also seems that we not only need meaning but also to live in accordance with this meaning. Based upon a series of studies, Karen Wright had written about the benefits we experience as we live according to the meaningful:

·       “Eudemonia refers to a state of well-being and full functioning that derives from a sense of living in accordance with one’s deeply held values.” (Psychology Today, May 2008, 76)

However, we don’t need studies to recognize the validity of eudemonia. The late novelist Norman Mailer had written:

·       “I think we are all healthier if we think there is some importance in what we’re doing. …When it seems like my life is meaningless, I feel closer to despair. I like life to have meaning. That is not to say you have to jump into meaning and find it where there is none.”

The German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche observed, “If we have a ‘why’ to live for, we can endure any ‘what.’”

I think that the majority of us would agree with the above. However, many of us believe that we don’t have to DISCOVER a meaning buried somewhere within the contours of reality. Instead, it is enough to CREATE our own version of meaning, as long as it works for us. One millennial confessed:

·       I don’t believe anyone can know the ultimate answers, but I also don’t think the ultimate answers are important. We can find peace and our meaning in life by knowing that we’re living our lives the best way we can!

But what do we do with our many painful moral failures, breeches of our own conscience and standards?

These ideas find expression in many forms. In our postmodern world, it is common to hear, “You have to find your own meaning and “truth” – whatever it is that works for you.”

While it is true that our life goals can be personal and subjection – some find their purpose in music, while others in sports and traveling – this understanding doesn’t contradict the fact that there are meanings and moral truths common to all of us, like love, justice, and not needlessly causing hurt. So let me rephrase my question:

·       Is there a meaning that is common to all of us, which we cannot simply create but must discover?

When we deny that such truth exists and can be discovered, we also deny that the collected wisdom of humanity is relevant and that there is no wisdom or life’s lessons that we can pass on to our children and students. In place of such collected wisdom, many maintain that it is enough to create our own truths or life meanings, even if they are subjective and apply only to us. Is this realistic? Will it fulfill our natural craving for meaning and self-definition for which Heschel and Mailer had sought?

Our subjective creations – our fantasies – might be temporarily satisfying, but they might also lead to a crash, like trying to drive a car blindfolded. Instead, when driving, we need specific and accurate data. Would not this analogy also apply to navigating our lives without objective truths regarding who we are, who our associates are, and what they need from us? Such questions should require us to look beyond our own “reality” or subjective creations to our shared reality.

Recently, my wife and I traveled with a very lovely woman who left her children behind to purpose her quest for adventure and romance, which she found. However, the man left her broken-hearted, but this wasn’t preventing her from pursuing another romance.

Was there an objective aspect of meaning that she was overlooking by following her passions? Would her passions, unbridled by wisdom, lead her to a debilitating series of crashes? It seemed to us that she was living a fantasy, which had posted a “Do Not Enter” sign over the doorway leading to wisdom. She was unwilling to tabulate the likely costs.

Are there objective costs for our denial of an objective meaning for our lives? One atheist friend explained to me that he had learned many years prior to reject the fact that we have freewill. Why? Believing that he could not have acted otherwise relieved him of his guilt. It “worked” for him, but at what price? For one thing, he had degraded himself by conceiving of himself as a mere wet machine, devoid of freedom. Besides, he would now have to regard others as mere wet machines. If he was to live consistently with his philosophy, he would have to favor the idea of throwing humans onto a junk-heap where we throw other machines once they lose their desired functionality and use.

Well, perhaps we should live according to our fantasies of romance and freedom from guilt? What else do we have? If our time on the stage of life is very limited, perhaps our goal should be pleasure even if this pleasure requires a “reality” which we construct. Why experience guilt if we don’t need to?

Actually, I can sympathize with this reasoning, if this existence is all that there is. However, I think that we have shut our eyes to the possibility of having a real meaning and truth:

·       So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)

It is because of the assurance of His undeserved love and forgiveness that I have the freedom stand tall, even as I face and own my many failures and sins, as I must.