Meaning as purpose
It was Victor Frankl, survivor of four Nazi camps the death of parents, a brother and a pregnant wife, who wrote Man’s search for meaning in 1946. He maintained that, for we humans, meaning is not, as Freud postulated, to be found in pleasure but will be found in finding a purpose. It is not surprising that Dr. Frankl’s name comes up when Krista Tibbett is having a discussion with Dr. Pauline Boss on June 23, 2016 during the taping of the show Oh Being. Ms. Tippett and Dr. Boss, author of Ambiguous Loss among other books and a family therapist, discussed “The myth of closure”.
It may be easy in these days of instant and continuous world-wide news to think that that we are the first humans to daily experience personal, community, national and international loss. There seems to be no time to grieve one tragedy before we are made aware of the next one. In some cultures, such as in the United States, we seem determined to live as if there are definite beginnings and endings. We seem fond of telling ourselves and other to move on or get over it. Whether it is the disappearance of a loved one who might still be alive or might be dead, the death of a child from a drug overdose, a car accident, a mass shooting, or combat we seem determined to distort the work of such learned teachers as Dr. Kubler’s Ross by telling ourselves and others to move through the grief process in a linear manner ending in acceptance. When we fail to do this, we may be labeled as pathological or as the very least be given the diagnosis of “complicated grief”.
We speak of the loss of the car keys, a marriage, a child, an idea, a dream, a beloved pet, or a thing such as a house or a favorite painting, as if they were all equal. Indeed a “thing” such as a painting might be a memorial of sorts which keeps us, at some level, connected to an individual in the same way that the Vietnam Wall memorial, or the memorial to honor the bombing victims in Oklahoma City gives us a tangible way to feel connected to those who are dead or who have disappeared at sea or somewhere else.
Freud is right. We do seem to look for meaning in momentary pleasures – shopping, gambling, alcohol, drugs, sex, power, roles, appearance, education, color, neighborhood, cars or other transitory pursuits or labels. Yet, none of these work for a long period of time.
In the Book of Common Prayer which is used by the Church of England is found a version of the confession which is used in many Christian churches, A general Confession to be said of the whole Congregation after the Minister, all kneeling.
ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father, We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, We have offended against thy holy laws, We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, And we have done those things which we ought not to have done, And there is no health in us: But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offenders; Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults, Restore thou them that are penitent, According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord: And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Ame
“A golly, righteous, and sober lifer” whatever that entails. No wonder we return again and again to those things, behavior or substances which brings temporary satisfaction or numbness. If our meaning or our purpose is to live a godly, righteous life, we know we will fail. Miserably! We will fail party because it almost seems as if this goal is to obtuse and illusionary. It is difficult to grab on to. Yet, many of us will borrow, adopt or formulate a set of rules by which we will judge the outcome of effort to live a Godly, righteous and sober life. Every religion lends itself to the temptation to self righteously judge the meaning of the life of our self and others - by the extent to which we obey a set of rules and, thus, please Allah, God, Elohim, Buddha or some other higher being. The meaning of life is now contained in the ability or lack of ability to obey rules for the sake of obey rules. Indeed there is no joy in this process. Our consolation for loss is our ability to trust that the God of our understanding has taken our loved one to his (or her) bosom which “should” please us, but which we may in our less Godly moments see as a selfish act. After all, how many souls can one God need to hold to his or her bosom.
Indeed, we are left with the only real purpose of life to love and let go. To love and let go! And, oh, we must not forget to let go with faith and joy.
Often we utter words meant to be comforting. Words such as:
[if !supportLists]· [endif]Sam or Susie or Pam is now with God. (Isn’t that wonderful.)
[if !supportLists]· [endif]It was his or her time.
[if !supportLists]· [endif]Time will heal.
[if !supportLists]· [endif]Your anger is a normal stage of grief.
[if !supportLists]· [endif]All things work together for good.
These words are much different than the simple “I’m sorry.” which Dr. Boss suggest is appropriate even if the disappearance or the death occurred many years ago.
I have often said to clients for/with whom I work. “Dead is dead. It is very permanent. We don’t get over it. We may or may not make some temporary peace with it. We may or may not find working for gun control, raising money for more drug abuse treatment, becoming part of a group which works for non- violent conflict resolutions or some other cause does bring a sense of purpose, but we still grieve. We still have a hole.”
Is the meaning or purpose of this life then to find a way to speak our truth which may then resonate or bring comfort to others who can identify with that truth? Perhaps our meaning is to return to a state of, as some Buddhists would suggest, of being present with love absent of any judgments. Perhaps being present is the use of whatever senses we personally have available to us (sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing- we may only have one or two of these available) to align with the universe with no purpose other than to be aligned.
If we are lucky, we will experience moments when it seems good to be alive; when it seems enough to be alive. Recently, following a long absence, I viewed the Blue Ridge Mountains. Ahh.., home I felt for a moment. My son recently wrote to me that when we attended a convention/gathering of other gamers/geeks he felt like he had found/come home.
Perhaps at times our purpose is just to be present with grief – the profound sense of loss. Perhaps it is to be both profoundly sad and profoundly grateful. Perhaps it is never either or. Perhaps it just is.
One thing for sure. We humans will continue this seemingly elusive search for meaning. We continue to search for temporary escapes or diversions. We will, if lucky, refuse to pretend to obey the linear rules leading to acceptance. We humans are, at our best, very curious beings – always searching for that elusive experience or attachment which will confer more than momentary meaning to this journey. We must, I think, continue that search and resist the labels which other may apply to us – even the labels of those learned doctors who preceded Dr Frankl and have found meaning in formulating a code book of medical labels knows as the Diagnostic Statistical Manual – edition V if you please or if you do not please!
Written June 26, 2016
It was Victor Frankl, survivor of four Nazi camps the death of parents, a brother and a pregnant wife, who wrote Man’s search for meaning in 1946. He maintained that, for we humans, meaning is not, as Freud postulated, to be found in pleasure but will be found in finding a purpose. It is not surprising that Dr. Frankl’s name comes up when Krista Tibbett is having a discussion with Dr. Pauline Boss on June 23, 2016 during the taping of the show Oh Being. Ms. Tippett and Dr. Boss, author of Ambiguous Loss among other books and a family therapist, discussed “The myth of closure”.
It may be easy in these days of instant and continuous world-wide news to think that that we are the first humans to daily experience personal, community, national and international loss. There seems to be no time to grieve one tragedy before we are made aware of the next one. In some cultures, such as in the United States, we seem determined to live as if there are definite beginnings and endings. We seem fond of telling ourselves and other to move on or get over it. Whether it is the disappearance of a loved one who might still be alive or might be dead, the death of a child from a drug overdose, a car accident, a mass shooting, or combat we seem determined to distort the work of such learned teachers as Dr. Kubler’s Ross by telling ourselves and others to move through the grief process in a linear manner ending in acceptance. When we fail to do this, we may be labeled as pathological or as the very least be given the diagnosis of “complicated grief”.
We speak of the loss of the car keys, a marriage, a child, an idea, a dream, a beloved pet, or a thing such as a house or a favorite painting, as if they were all equal. Indeed a “thing” such as a painting might be a memorial of sorts which keeps us, at some level, connected to an individual in the same way that the Vietnam Wall memorial, or the memorial to honor the bombing victims in Oklahoma City gives us a tangible way to feel connected to those who are dead or who have disappeared at sea or somewhere else.
Freud is right. We do seem to look for meaning in momentary pleasures – shopping, gambling, alcohol, drugs, sex, power, roles, appearance, education, color, neighborhood, cars or other transitory pursuits or labels. Yet, none of these work for a long period of time.
In the Book of Common Prayer which is used by the Church of England is found a version of the confession which is used in many Christian churches, A general Confession to be said of the whole Congregation after the Minister, all kneeling.
ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father, We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, We have offended against thy holy laws, We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, And we have done those things which we ought not to have done, And there is no health in us: But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offenders; Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults, Restore thou them that are penitent, According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord: And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Ame
“A golly, righteous, and sober lifer” whatever that entails. No wonder we return again and again to those things, behavior or substances which brings temporary satisfaction or numbness. If our meaning or our purpose is to live a godly, righteous life, we know we will fail. Miserably! We will fail party because it almost seems as if this goal is to obtuse and illusionary. It is difficult to grab on to. Yet, many of us will borrow, adopt or formulate a set of rules by which we will judge the outcome of effort to live a Godly, righteous and sober life. Every religion lends itself to the temptation to self righteously judge the meaning of the life of our self and others - by the extent to which we obey a set of rules and, thus, please Allah, God, Elohim, Buddha or some other higher being. The meaning of life is now contained in the ability or lack of ability to obey rules for the sake of obey rules. Indeed there is no joy in this process. Our consolation for loss is our ability to trust that the God of our understanding has taken our loved one to his (or her) bosom which “should” please us, but which we may in our less Godly moments see as a selfish act. After all, how many souls can one God need to hold to his or her bosom.
Indeed, we are left with the only real purpose of life to love and let go. To love and let go! And, oh, we must not forget to let go with faith and joy.
Often we utter words meant to be comforting. Words such as:
[if !supportLists]· [endif]Sam or Susie or Pam is now with God. (Isn’t that wonderful.)
[if !supportLists]· [endif]It was his or her time.
[if !supportLists]· [endif]Time will heal.
[if !supportLists]· [endif]Your anger is a normal stage of grief.
[if !supportLists]· [endif]All things work together for good.
These words are much different than the simple “I’m sorry.” which Dr. Boss suggest is appropriate even if the disappearance or the death occurred many years ago.
I have often said to clients for/with whom I work. “Dead is dead. It is very permanent. We don’t get over it. We may or may not make some temporary peace with it. We may or may not find working for gun control, raising money for more drug abuse treatment, becoming part of a group which works for non- violent conflict resolutions or some other cause does bring a sense of purpose, but we still grieve. We still have a hole.”
Is the meaning or purpose of this life then to find a way to speak our truth which may then resonate or bring comfort to others who can identify with that truth? Perhaps our meaning is to return to a state of, as some Buddhists would suggest, of being present with love absent of any judgments. Perhaps being present is the use of whatever senses we personally have available to us (sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing- we may only have one or two of these available) to align with the universe with no purpose other than to be aligned.
If we are lucky, we will experience moments when it seems good to be alive; when it seems enough to be alive. Recently, following a long absence, I viewed the Blue Ridge Mountains. Ahh.., home I felt for a moment. My son recently wrote to me that when we attended a convention/gathering of other gamers/geeks he felt like he had found/come home.
Perhaps at times our purpose is just to be present with grief – the profound sense of loss. Perhaps it is to be both profoundly sad and profoundly grateful. Perhaps it is never either or. Perhaps it just is.
One thing for sure. We humans will continue this seemingly elusive search for meaning. We continue to search for temporary escapes or diversions. We will, if lucky, refuse to pretend to obey the linear rules leading to acceptance. We humans are, at our best, very curious beings – always searching for that elusive experience or attachment which will confer more than momentary meaning to this journey. We must, I think, continue that search and resist the labels which other may apply to us – even the labels of those learned doctors who preceded Dr Frankl and have found meaning in formulating a code book of medical labels knows as the Diagnostic Statistical Manual – edition V if you please or if you do not please!
Written June 26, 2016
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