SYNOPSIS:

    When we seek to make our own lives "meaningful",
we may be struggling with two different sorts of meaninglessness.
We can create many forms of relative meanings
within the assumed areas of meaningful life:
money, achievement, love, marriage, children, enjoyment, & religion.
But even when we have fulfilled such meanings,
we may still feel an ultimate hollowness,
a spiritual or existential meaninglessness.
This deeper meaninglessness is not overcome
by any of the relative meanings we are able to create or achieve.
Ultimate meaning comes only as a gift
—independent of whatever relative meanings we can achieve.

The following 5-fold distinction underlies this feature article:

Relative Meaninglessness          Existential Meaninglessness

1. Disappointed expectations;              1. Frameworks of meaning collapse;
failure to fulfill accepted criteria.         lack of ultimate purpose in life.

2. Discrepancy between established     2. Uncaused; discovered as a
criteria and observable actualities;      fundamental condition-of-being;
based on intellectual information.       existentially disclosed.

3. Temporary—lasts only until              3. Permanent—no matter what we
the discrepancy is corrected.               change, meaninglessness continues.

4. Limited to a specific                         4. Pervades every dimension of life.
realm of meaning.

5. We know what to change                5. Nothing we can do will
to bring meaning.                               make life ultimately meaningful.

OUTLINE:

I. MY EARLY QUEST FOR MEANING
II. NO HELP FROM ACADEMIC PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY
III. RELATIVE MEANINGLESSNESS & EXISTENTIAL MEANINGLESSNESS
IV. THE COLLAPSE OF 'MEANINGS' AND ILLUSIONS
V. BEYOND EXISTENTIAL MEANINGLESSNESS

I. MY EARLY QUEST FOR MEANING

    I first glimpsed the meaninglessness of life in my late teens,
when I began to look deeply into my future,
trying to decide what to do with my life.
It was a time of deep searching and questioning.
I will try to reproduce from memory some of my thoughts from that time:

      I see many people in the world, running this way and that,
 busy with work and family and various kinds of recreation.
 But what does it all mean in the long run?
 What if I had never been born?
 And after I am dead, what mark will I have left on the world
 to show that I have existed,
 that I have accomplished something?
 Will I be remembered for even 100 years?

      Human life seems like a useless, meaningless treadmill.
 It is like a huge industrial complex for producing oil,
 but all of the oil is needed to keep the machines running!
 All it accomplishes is its own perpetuation.
 What's the point of running around in a squirrel-cage,
 of giving my life to a rat-race without a goal?

     I now see that I misunderstood the nature of my meaninglessness
and that I was using inappropriate methods for dealing with it
—looking for a definite purpose, a specific meaning for my life.
But this effort to create my own meaning did not work.
I eventually saw thru all the goals and purposes of my contemporaries:
Possessions, accomplishments, adventures, love, marriage, family
all seemed hollow and empty, ephemeral and fleeting.
I knew these would not satisfy my quest for meaning.
And I took an arrogant attitude toward those who thought otherwise
—the near-sighted people who literally gave themselves to such trivia:

      Most people keep their eyes trained just a few paces ahead.
 They do not see their coming deaths;
 they do not ask where their journey is ultimately headed.
 They live relatively contented lives, pursuing their goals,
 enjoying the many diversions and amusements along the way.
 Their lives differ little from the lives of animals.
 They live from one moment to the next as their neighbors do,
 without asking the ultimate questions of life.

      Granted that this life has no meaning in itself,
 it must be preparation for life in another dimension.
 Death is not the end but the beginning,
 the beginning of an eternal life which will be so meaningful
 that its meaning will reflect back on this preparatory life.
 Only when the heavenly life has begun, however,
 will we understand the full significance
 of what is happening to us in earthly life.

II. NO HELP FROM ACADEMIC PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

     Another snapshot: In an introductory psychology class in college,
the professor commented that the search for meaning was childish.
The students all laughed; obviously they did not agree.
Perhaps the professor thought we should to be satisfied with
relative meanings, short-term goals we can achieve.
Everyday purposes and goals can be measured against assumed values.

III. RELATIVE MEANINGLESSNESS & EXISTENTIAL MEANINGLESSNESS

     But when we say that life is meaningless,
we question the assumed standards of meaning themselves.
We know that we can spend our lives working toward relative goals.
But is that meaningful?  The whole process seems hollow and empty.

     Short-term purposes and relative goals no longer satisfy us.
We know all about pursuing practical goals in work and family.
But do these little meanings add up to anything?
Even in the midst of contentment, existential meaninglessness appears.

IV. THE COLLAPSE OF 'MEANINGS' AND ILLUSIONS

     This is not a reasoned conclusion but an inward disclosure.
Spiritual meaninglessness is a sense of futility arising from within.
Such disclosive moments happen when short-term goals collapse.
Or maybe in a period of leisure we see ourselves in depth.
We may suddenly be struck with the futility of our lives.
One of the "Peanuts" comic strips illustrates this:
Lucy is merrily jumping rope.  Suddenly her mouth droops;
she drags her jump-rope over to Charlie Brown and says,
"I suddenly realized the futility of it all!"

     Usually we keep our underlying condition locked away, under wraps.
We keep ourselves busy and preoccupied
so that we seldom notice our fundamental meaninglessness.
But sometimes—against our wills—something pierces our thick skin,
cracks our protective shell, opens the cage of our imprisonment,
and our guts spill tangled on the ground.
Our life-purposes have collapsed, leaving us empty and alone.

     Every 'meaning' contains the possibility of disillusionment.
If we put our trust in possessions, success,
marriage, children, enjoyment, religion,
we can be profoundly disappointed if that 'meaning' fails.

     If we hope to attain meaning thru children who will live after us,
perhaps giving us a pinch of 'immortality',
then we may be cast into confusion and regret
if our children disappoint our dreams 'for them'
or if all our children die before us, leaving no children of their own.
If our dreams of finding meaning thru children are destroyed,
our hidden existential meaninglessness may flood into consciousness.

V. BEYOND EXISTENTIAL MEANINGLESSNESS

     It may take years of living to be convinced
that—try as we might—we cannot create our own ultimate meaning.
But then, perhaps, Existential Freedom dawns.
When we let go of the relative meanings we once thought were absolute,
when we surrender entirely, no longer depending on ourselves,
we may open ourselves for the coming of meaning.
Our existential meaninglessness is lifted.
Martin Buber puts it this way:

 There is an inexpressible confirmation of meaning.
 Meaning is assured.
 Nothing can any longer be meaningless.
 The question about the meaning of life is no longer there.
 But were it there, it would not have to be answered.
 You do not know how to exhibit and define the meaning of life,
 you have no formula or picture for it,
 and yet it has more certitude for you
 than the perceptions of your senses....
 Meaning does not permit itself to be transmitted
 and made into knowledge generally current and admissible....
 It is not prescribed, it is not specified on any tablet,
 to be raised above all men's heads.
 The meaning that has been received can be proved true
 to each man only in the singleness of his being
 and the singleness of his life.

 [Martin Buber I and Thou  tr. Ronald Gregor Smith
 (New York: Scribners, 1958) p. 110 & 111]

     We know that this "confirmation of meaning" comes from beyond us
because we have already tried our own resources—without success.
All we can know is how we orient ourselves to be released:
We open ourselves in trust, receptivity, humility, surrender.
And our existential meaninglessness, our inward Malaise, is removed.

     This is not a cognitive meaning, to be logically explained.
Existential meaning is not a cosmic revelation, picturing another life.
No new insight has occurred; no new information has been provided.
Existential meaning is received as a gift.
It does not reveal itself all at once; we glimpse it from time to time;
we gradually come to realize that meaning has dawned upon us.

1.  When did you first begin to ask about the meaning of life?

2.  What do you think about the assumed 'meanings' of our culture?

3.  When choosing how to spend your life, do you feel meaningless?

4.  Has it been difficult to share your meaninglessness with others?

5.  If and when you feel meaningless, do you consider suicide?

6.  Have you been content to pursue relative meanings,
       without asking for the ultimate meaning of human existence?

7.  All of the world's religions see some purpose behind human life.
       Which of these views—if any—do you find convincing?

8.  Was there a time in your life when religious beliefs
       gave meaning to your existence?

9.  Can earthly life be made meaningful by life after death?

10. Have you ever had a 'disclosive moment' in which you saw futility?

11. Have you given up the struggle to create your own meaning?

12. Have you opened yourself for the coming of existential meaning?

13. Have you experienced the removal of existential meaninglessness?

    James Park is an existential philosopher.
He does not have most of the relative fulfillments of life.
But his life is meaningful, as explored in this article.

    You will learn much more about him on his home page:
An Existential Philosopher's Museum,
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/

    This feature article is based on a small book called
Opening to Grace:
Transcending our Spiritual Malaise
Chapter 4: "Relative Meaninglessness & Spiritual Meaninglessness"
For more information about Opening to Grace go to:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/OG.html

James Park  Our Existential Predicament:
Loneliness, Depression, Anxiety, & Death
(Minneapolis, MN: Existential Books, 2001)
Ch. 4 "Existential Meaninglessness" p. 69-75.
This entire chapter is available free of charge on the Internet.
Just click the title above or go to this URL:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/XP69.html
More information about Our Existential Predicament
is available on the Internet,
including more than 10% of the pages of the book:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/XP.html

James Park  In Quest of Fulfillment:
Money, Achievement, Marriage, Children, Enjoyment, & Religion
(Minneapolis, MN: Existential Books, 1999)
For complete information about In Quest of Fulfillment, go to:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/QF.html

    If you would like to know more about the existential approach,
read some of the books in the Existential Spirituality Bibliography:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/B-XSP.html

    Readers belonging to other schools of philosophy
—which may have different answers to the question of meaning—
are invited to assemble similar bibliographies
of the best books supporting other points of view.
These will be linked with your brief comments
published along with this feature article.

    Eight other books exploring a variety of approaches
to the quest for meaning in life are found here:
Meaning in Life Bibliography:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/B-MEAN.html

    Of all the people in your computer
(actually the people listed in your address book),
which ones would most appreciate
"Looking for the Meaning of Life"?
Perhaps you have 3 or 5 friends in cyber-space
who would benefit from reading this article.
You might include a note explaining
why you believe this article would interest them.

    But please do not merely forward these articles to everyone you know.
Be selective.  We do not want HMS articles
to become another form of electronic junk mail.
You might simply send the URL of this article:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/HMS-PG4.html.

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