Our search for meaning is a preoccupation that can push us on to great heights of achievement; but can also lead to significant existential distress and self-destruction. For many, meaning is believed to exist in abstractions. Be it identity, religion, work. Both of these require the sacrifice of the present in order to realise an idealised conception of the future. We both discover and invent meaning, constructing the mental concepts to support these inventions that we believe are necessary to sustain a life that is worthwhile.
Meaning is important, a life without a shared sense of meaning would have some dark implications for the way in which we live and treat each other. However, there is a problem that lies in the fact that meaning is often sought in abstractions. We look up and outward, over and past one another to potential signs and symbols that we believe justify or vindicate our own personal decisions. We sacrifice years of our lives toward work or ideals that we believe will one day provide us the time and space to engage with what we hold most dear, a final delivery to our imagined paradisal paradisal future – a delivery that we hope will finally reward our negation of the present.
A diversification of meaning refers to spreading what is important to us beyond just mental abstraction. Spreading it to relationships, hobbies, personal interests and physical activity. By finding a small slice of meaning in our daily activities, we can maintain mindfulness of the present, whilst also spreading the risk of having all of our spiritual eggs in one basket. By spreading this risk beyond a narrow idealism, we lower the risk of being laid low by some crisis of faith if that ideal or our conception of it sours.
Meaning is not necessarily an unalloyed good. The individual suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, is someone who has a lot of meaning in her life, however this meaning isn’t shared with anyone and so casts her out of society. The meaning in the life of the fanatic willing to kill for their cause is also palpable, but is blind to reason, or alternative points of view, leading to destruction. Meaning can sustain us and push us to become better versions of ourselves, but it can also turn back on itself and destroy the person who previously had invested so much in a narrow vision. Meaning, too narrowly focused, becomes fanaticism. By diversifying what we find meaning from, we can reduce the risk that we are stumbling blind on a path into the darkness, cutting ourselves off from the present moment and the people within it.
Meaning is important, but it becomes dangerous when it is coupled by all or nothing thinking that holds a particular ideal or vision as the only way to live a valuable life.
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