At one point in my life, I
desperately searched for meaning in my life and in all life. I felt that
everything had a purpose or some destiny. Now I do not so much look for meaning
as I do connection because through connection my life has purpose. I realize
that I am not an island; my actions influence other people like their actions
influence me. I also believe in Jung’s collective unconscious (Myers, 2010);
that on some level, we all tap into, maintain, and add new information to this collective which
influences the individual at all junctures. This is like the Hermetic
philosophy that the one is the all and the all is the one (The Three Initiates,
1908); each individual is part of the whole and influences the whole while the
whole is part of each individual and influences the individual. The more I realize
the connection I have with the life cycle the more meaning my life has. With
meaning comes peace and tranquility in knowing that all is appropriate and
cycles. Opportunities are not missed but will come up again when the individual
is ready to receive the opportunity. One is hungry and sleepy at certain times.
One has schedules that he or she adheres to. In essence, all of life is a cycle
(1908) and the more I see my position in the various cycles the more connected
I feel and the more meaning I perceive because life is not chaotic but
masterfully orchestrated.
Ultimately, I feel that when
people search for meaning they are really searching for connection. This is not
to say the meaning is not important. This search is so important that I believe
it drives most people’s daily interactions and sways or polarizes one to either
a spiritual or scientific pursuit; as I have suggested before, I believe the
science and spirituality are two sides of the same coin or opposite ends of the
same spectrum. I believe that everything exists in a circular, cyclical format
and this spectrum is no different. Therefore, as one approaches spirituality
they are moving away from science; however there is an apex where one becomes
so spiritual that they reach a critical point and then start to enjoy more
scientific pursuits thus moving away from spirituality. In essence, because
they are both part of the same cyclical spectrum there is never a complete
absence of one from the other; they intermingle and dance and sometimes one is
more dominant than the other. This example embodies the law of polarity as
described in the Kyballion (The Three Initiates, 1908).
People all have different
definitions for meaning. Some believe that meaning defines and pigeonholes a
topic. Some believe it means they have a purpose or a driving passion. Some
define it as value or the belief that everything must have an associated value.
Whereas I look at meaning as pointless. To say that something has meaning
indicates that one has an understanding of something that he or she pursues; the
fact of the matter is, however, that these perspectives these are beyond our
current comprehension and as such meaning does not fit within these confines.
It assumes one has arrived at a destination and no more searching is needed on
the subject. It abdicates further growth and development and speeds one up
toward the inevitability of death by removing one from the cycle of life. Therefore,
to search for meaning is pointless because it does not provide the impetus for
continued development and searching.
Finding a meaning is an endpoint
and derails one from the journey of searching. For example, suppose there was a
male researcher whose entire life purpose was to find a cure to cancer. He spent
many long hours holed up in a research lab, taking case studies of cancer
victims and survivors, and reading all the new advances in the field. He developed
many methods of making life more comfortable, extending people’s life, or
enhancing the quality of life; however, no cure was ever found. On this
individual’s deathbed, he felt remorseful and felt like a failure. The people,
however, did not see it this way. This individual was celebrated for his
accomplishments and additions to the field. Later, someone else took up his
work, continued it, and was able to find an elusive cure; she could not have
done this without the previous individual’s contributions. When she was asked
what part of the previous researcher’s work was the most helpful to her, she
stated it was the man’s failures because those helped keep her focused on the
right path and away from exploring avenues that would prove fruitless. To the
individual who defined his life on the meaning of curing cancer thought he was
a failure. To the many people whose life he made more comfortable and to the
future people who received a cure based on this man’s research, the man’s life
was a success; the work created connections even if the man’s original meaning
or purpose was not reached in his lifetime. If one just focuses on meaning
rather than on the journey of growth and development, then that individual’s life
will culminate in unhappiness.
For these reasons, I do not
believe that meaning serves as a bridge between scientific and spiritual
pursuits. While I appreciate Dr. Sharpe’s work on attempting to bridge science
and spirituality, I do not think that his emphasis on finding meaning is the
answer. Meaning is too fixed and un-malleable; it cannot adapt to changes in
direction because it has already decided the direction. I do not think that
something that only focuses on the finite and defined potentials can ever serve
in a capacity as to define a journey when the destination is not fixed but changes
fluidly.
On a side note, finding meaning
to give something a value or pigeonhole it into a specific framework is similar
to the notion of labeling. Psychology has recently discovered that labels can
inflict far more psychological damage than the psychological problem that one
is diagnosed with (Comer, 2005). This is because the diagnosis, or label,
carries a specific set of expected behaviors and inherent biases. In other
words, people expect the patient to act a specific way (2005) and they will
therefore interpret any and all actions within a schema of that label as
justifications of the diagnosis whether the individual’s actions fit or not. In
addition, the patient who received the diagnosis will adjust their behavior (2005)
to fit the expected behaviors. Several studies have confirmed that people will
adopt a disease simply due to the power of suggestion. This is also testament
to the power of the placebo (Stangor, 2011) Researchers studying a new drug and
engaging in drug trials to test the efficacy of the drug always create a
control group that is given a placebo because the placebo effect (2011), or
power of suggestion is well known. If the experimental group, the one receiving
the drug or treatment, does not fare much better than the control group, then
the efficacy of the drug is not much better than how well one recovers due to
the power of suggestion. In essence, I am suggesting that by giving these
things meaning, that it gives the thing a life of its own; however, the meaning
is finite and carries a set of behavioral expectations, therefore it is not
adaptable to new circumstances.
References
Myers, D. (2010). Exploring psychology in modules (8th ed.). New York, NY: Worth.
Stangor, C. (2011). Research methods for the behavioral sciences (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
The Three Initiates. (1908). The Kybalion: A study of of the Hermetic philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece (Kindle ed.). Retrieved from www.amazon.com
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