8. On Meaning
What do you think of when you hear the term ‘existential crisis’?
When I was growing up, it often felt like it was something to be mocked. Sitcoms during the 90s and early 2000s piled into the concept with lazily scripted glee. Perhaps this blog might even come across as the perfect example for them to take aim at.
And you’d be right.
But possibly not for the reasons you might think.
The perception around “finding your life’s meaning” for some might just be another way to say someone was having a “mid-life crisis.” It might have been described as a ‘phase’ - something that a person might ‘snap out of’ before returning back ‘to normal’.
It’s often characterised by the image of people endlessly asking themselves ‘Why am I here?’ or ‘What is the meaning of life?’, as though there is some expectation that at some point an answer will magically appear if they ask often enough.
Meaning won’t be found in those waters. It starts and ends at the edge of that dock.
But the theory of Existentialism is much simpler and cleaner than that. And it’s far more instructional than many might realise.
Existentialism is believing that existence comes before essence.
Ok.
So, what does that mean?
If essence, or meaning, comes before existence, it implies a belief in the idea of inate ‘meaning’ existing in the world. In other words, a belief in the idea that a universal, yet hidden, truth exists and we are still to discover it. It’s the thought that we are born into a specific world with the intention of discovering some inherent meaning within it.
If that thought sounds quite religious by nature, that shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, religions are mostly built on sets of beliefs and guidelines on what it is to live a ‘meaningful’ life. We are told that if we follow these guidelines, as decided by others or ancient texts, it will lead to meaning. In this version, much of life becomes about pursuing that meaning after we are born through sets of pre-ordained actions. Or, in other words, chasing an inate universal essence, or meaning, after we come into existence. I.e. after we are born.
This, in many ways, removes our ability to control our own lives. And in doing so, it removes our freedom.
Existentialism asks you to consider life’s big question from the opposite view.
Existentialism says; we come into existence, and it is then up to us to discover our essence.
The harsh truth being all this is that there isn’t a greater sense of meaning to be discovered; meaning is up to us to decide. Jean-Paul Sartre, a founder in Existentialism, asked a fundamental question back in the 1920s:
“What if we are born without a pre-ordained meaning but rather our life is about choosing or making it for ourselves?”
He believed that when you realise this, you become free.
But choosing your life’s meaning sounds like a pretty daunting thing to do. And it is. That’s why Sartre also said, without humour: “Man is condemned to be free”.
An existential crisis is not about asking ‘What is the meaning of life’? It is about recognising that we all are all free to define what the meaning will be for own life.
You choose your life’s meaning.
Your life becomes meaningful, when you direct your actions at that meaning.
“Life isn’t about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself.”
“When people ask, ‘What is my life purpose?’ what they’re actually asking is: ‘How can I use my time in a way that feels meaningful?’”
The fact is that it is up to us, no one else, to decide how we should derive meaning in our lives.
When our lives were simpler, and more survival focused, it was easier in many ways to find meaning. Doing what was necessary to provide adequate shelter, or stave off hunger, or protect your loved ones against threats resulted in pretty straight lines to a common set of values. These common values, or ways to act and behave, were essential for staying alive.
For example, it was incredibly risky to be dishonest, because if you were found out, you were far more likely to be cast aside by the tribe and left to fend for yourself. Similarly, being selfish was a short-term tactic for immediate gain, not a long term strategy for survival. You might nosh down on excess fruit for a day, but if your selfishness led you to being ostracised by your group and left alone, you would eventually starve.
“It used to be that meaning naturally occurred as a side effect of the things we see and do. But today most of what we have access to is inherently meaningless.”
In today’s world, these straight lines aren’t so simple anymore. Most our base needs are taken care of in a way that doesn’t force us to rely on those around us as clearly anymore. It’s become ‘easier’ to survive on our own, or within smaller groups who might not question or test our values as readily. The world of social media allows us to portray one image, but live an entirely different one in our own realities.
We don’t get ‘punished’ as readily for living different values as we might have in the past.
Therefore, defining our values has become more complicated. It’s become easier to signal, or to say what our values are, without having to prove them, or to back them up with consistent actions. Consider the act of changing a social media profile picture to a black square in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, but not calling out a friend when they casually drop a racist remark. We don’t suffer the same feedback we might have in the past for failing to live up to our values. And as I’ve discussed before, failing to live up to our values is often the cause of significant pain.
Instead of asking ‘What is the meaning of my life?’, we can take control of our lives by asking instead;
“What are the values I am willing to suffer for, because they make my life meaningful?’
What empowers us to truly live our values, to find our personal ‘meaningful struggles’, is defining our values for ourselves.
Choosing to inherit or adopt our values unquestioningly from others (whether that be through religion, our parents, workplace or cultures) will never allow us to find meaning. Because we are living out the values of others. Maybe those values are right for you - but without examining them closely and scrutinising what they mean for you, you’ll never truly know. You’ll never have exercised your freedom to be able to answer that question definitively so you’ll always be left wondering.
Your values have to be crafted by your hand and your mind for you to truly own them. Defining our values gives us the freedom we need to pursue personal growth in our lives.
“Nausea”, by Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre explores this idea of freedom. He defines the concept of ‘living in bad faith’ as accepting something that is true because it is convenient even though we know deep down it doesn’t seem to fit.
‘Living in bad faith’ is believing in the stories we want to hear, rather than facing hard questions or situations as they actually are.
It’s easier to believe that we ‘have no choices’ than to admit that we’ve chosen the wrong ones. Or to remain too afraid of choosing at all. Unless we do the work to decide and discover for ourselves what our values are and what we want to commit to, we will never be able to answer those nagging voices in our head that make themselves heard when something doesn’t ‘feel right’ or seemingly doesn’t fit.
Accepting ‘bad faith’ is to choose long term agony over short term discomfort. And that discomfort can be intense. The freedom that Sartre refers to is the same as what Soren Kierkegaard speaks of when he said, “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom”. He goes on to explain:
“It is far easier to ‘emasculate oneself, in a spiritual sense’, and cling to the herd ‘in order to be at least something’, than to stand alone, heeding the eternal demand ‘to become oneself’. For one of the greatest fears in the individual is that ultimately they are alone, and therefore solely responsible for their life.”
But we are responsible for our own lives, and in particular, for the values that will define and give meaning to them. Accepting this responsibility is scary, painful even, but entirely necessary for our long term growth.
And it gets even scarier. Because it’s not enough to just define what our values are.
Stating what our values are is one step, but it is only in living them in our daily lives and actions that we prove to ourselves and others that we are committed to them.
It is why we must put our trust in what people do, not what they say.
For example, if I shout into a loudhailer (or tweet), “I value non-violence”, while wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a peace symbol that is the same one I wear in my social media profile picture, all while stabbing the person in front of me repeatedly with a knife, who am I truly? I am the person of my stabby actions, not of my peaceful words or staged images.
Therefore, once we have done the hard work of deciding what our values are, and what we want them to be, we have to move beyond that and into the phase of living them. Because it is only through taking our values into the real world through our actions that we will discover whether they are capable of leading to the growth we might be aiming for. There comes a time when we have to move from theory to practical. To put away the books, podcasts, blogs and conversations from what we think it is to have a meaningful life, and to go out there and start trying to live one.
“Waste no more time arguing what a good person should be. Be one.”
“Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.”
The next question is inevitable:
“How do I work out what my values are?”
Luckily, I’ve developed this course which tackles that exact question, alongside how to figure out what you want to make purposeful in your life, and define the goals that will get you there.
You choose your life’s meaning.
Your life becomes meaningful, when you take direct your actions at that meaning.
These posts are written to remind our readers that; Life is hard, we’re all just trying our best and we could all do with a little help, no matter where it comes from.
How did the thoughts above impact on how you think about Learning from Meaning? We’d love to hear your comments below.