I want to ask you something… actually a few things.
How important is it to you that your life has meaning? Would you say that your life currently feels meaningful or do you wish your life had greater purpose and meaning?
It seems you’d first have to decide what exactly constitutes a life of meaning. Then you could determine what changes might be necessary in order to make your life more meaningful? We all want that, right? No one wants to live a meaningless life. To feel that one’s life is void of meaning is despairing. Life must have meaning to be worth living.
Or does it?
Where exactly did the idea of “meaning” come from? How is it that human beings became so preoccupied with it? At what stage of our evolution as Homo sapiens did we begin to scrutinize our lives on these terms?
And who decides what the meaning of life is? Does religion, and which one? And what if you are an Atheist? Is there no meaning? Logotherapy was developed by Holocaust survivor, neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl and is based on the premise that the primary motivational force of an individual is to find a meaning in life. Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, making the list of “the ten most influential books in the United States”, and selling more than 17 million copies in 54 languages.
The search for meaning is also lucrative. Have you ever noticed how the personal pursuit of meaning has become a leading marketing strategy? These days the promise of, and search for, meaning has been grafted onto almost every aspect of our lives. A product, service, or experience is no longer judged simply on whether it’s “good” or “bad,” but whether or not it is, in some abstract way, “meaningful.”
The exploitation of meaning is the new blueprint for inducing consumer spending. Marketing gurus know we will spend six dollars on ice cream or coffee if we can be convinced it’s actually more than ice cream or coffee, and imbedded with some life-changing social or cultural cause or value. There’s a reason why highly-priced body wash wants you to equate their product with “body positivity”, or why you will see two minutes of neighborly relationships, nostalgia, and small-town values before you discover it’s an insurance commercial. Subaru even has a “Love Promise”:
“The Subaru Love Promise is our vision to show love and respect to all people at every interaction with Subaru. Together with our retailers, we are dedicated to making the world a better place. We believe in being a positive force in the communities in which we live and work, not just with donations, but with actions that set an example for others to follow. Through our five core pillars — Environment, Health, Education, Pets, and Community — and the Subaru Share the Love Event, we aim to create change in the areas we and our owners care about the most.”
Seriously??? A car? Okay, I admit that I’m a skeptic. But, pets???
The pursuit of meaning has shifted from an epic journey to a scavenger hunt. It’s not enough to locate purpose in love, family, work or religion, now we’ve been conditioned to find meaning in everything we do. From our morning coffee to our weekend laundry load, each event or chore needs to be elevated into an inspiring experience of existence. We meditate, listen to podcasts, and cram in five minutes of mindful journaling in order to make life matter.
But is it possible that too much meaning is a bad thing? What if the notion of the “meaning of life” is a myth? And what if the sooner you know this, the better off you will be?
I want to introduce you to a philosopher who believed that the search for meaning is a curse, and that our insistence that life be meaningful is the biggest obstacle in the way of our happiness. He challenged the idea that the crux of a worthy existence is knowing our lives have meaning. I included him in this series - “Philosophers You Have Never Heard Of” - mainly because he refused the label of “philosopher”. If you google the top 50 philosophers of all time, he won’t be on the list.
So far in this series I have covered the following philosophers:
In this article I want to discuss the philosophical insights of Albert Camus.
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