The Making of Meaning
Last Saturday – 4th April – I delivered a course much anticipated… by me anyway. It was the first time I’ve got to use my philosophy background explicitly in a course, except for some work I’ve done in the area of business ethics.
The course was on the meaning of life, and how to find it for yourself. It’s interesting to me that this sort of topic is becoming more in demand not only for personal development but also in organizational growth. A framework of meaning connecting individual and corporate purpose provides the ultimate in occupational motivation!
I’ve already mentioned the direction of the course in the enigmatically-named blog called 42. Instead, what I want to do here is share a few insights that I’ve gleaned during the course of my research and the delivery of my course.
- Don’t look for a single sentence answer. To use some metaphors – don’t think in terms of a shooting a silver-bullet so much as a weaving a web.
- Better to ask, ‘What is the meaning of my life?’ than ‘What is the meaning of life-in-general?’. There is no ‘life-in-general’ so make your answer concrete and specific. Focus your mind towards people or activities or experiences.
- Try to balance the comic with the tragic. Too much either way will led to depression. In fact, I would suggest that a third element is necessary to round off your life-narrative – the fantasy or ‘fairy-tale’. This leaves space for the magic of creativity and change.
- Everyone has a meaning to life, a personal philosophy. It may be implicit or explicit, coherent or contradictory. Best if you become aware of it and then make it what you want. Otherwise, you are under the power of the imposed meaning of others.
- No-one is a total relativist. Everyone believes in some standard or follows a way. The issue is how you hold to it.
- Some of the ‘big issues’ of philosophy can have real, everyday implications for how you live and think and feel about yourself. Freedom versus fate. The individual versus the collective. The body versus the mind. There are some of the issues that drive your engine. Better pick the ones that help you run the most efficiently.
- Reality is not objective. All seeing is ‘seeing-as’. Your perspective on the world becomes your world. As you construct your worldview, you construct your world. Your world is the place that you inhabit. Take responsibility for it!
- Worldviews are detected by the language people use to describe their lives and the stories they tell each other about themselves. But it works the other way around too. Language and stories are not just indicators or expressions; they are also the tools you can use to alter your world. They work from the outside in as well as the inside out.
- Try this image. Don’t think of yourself looking out at the universe, asking it the question, ‘What is the meaning of my life?’ Think of you, standing at the center, with the universe asking the question to you, ‘What is the meaning of your life?’ What will you say? The universe waits to see. (Or for advances students, what if you universe whispered to you, ‘You are the meaning of the universe, you are the answer to the question.’)
In writing these points I’ve used a mixture of metaphors and questions. They are some of the most powerful tools in the making of meaning. But, first of all, know yourself! Self-awareness is not only the beginning of Emotional Intelligence; it is the beginning of all personal meaning. Use whatever means you can to achieve this goal: self-assessment instruments (Briggs-Myers Type Indicator, Enneagram of Personality, Character Strengths and Virtues, learning styles), journaling, meditation and mindfulness training, whatever.
Then, take responsibility! Be pro-active! This ain’t just for philosophers. Or rather, since we’re all philosophers, seekers after wisdom, it’s up to all of us. For the making of meaning is a task that makes us human.
Thankfully, only humans attended my course.
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