421. Meaning In Life

Human beings need meaning. We not only perceive the world around us, we also perceive value: we reflect on our perceptions and judge certain things to be better for us than others. Everything that carries value we also take to be important, good, and meaningful. And only what is meaningful feels worthy of our pursuit or support.

We need meaning not just in the objects we find and the events we experience but in ourselves as well. The absence of meaning in life would seem to make everything we do unnecessary, including being alive at all. A life devoid of meaning is not one we would want to have. As such, meaning becomes a demand we make on life itself.

We attempt to fulfill this demand by creating meaning in every part of our experience. We give meaning to the things we cherish, to special events, to the people we care about, to our ideas and traditions, and so on. We also share our meanings with others, allowing them to find meaning in these things too, which confirms and multiplies their value.

But sometimes we see through the meanings we have created for ourselves. We suddenly find ourselves struck by the unmistakable realization that these meanings are nothing more than the subjective judgments of ourselves and others and therefore objectively worthless. We might even come to believe that human-created meaning is only an illusion we have accepted in order to comfort ourselves.

Fortunately, there is another kind of meaning available to us that persists regardless of our judgments. It is the meaning created through the actions we take to meet the needs of living beings, ourselves included. To meet a need is to act creatively to sustain and support life. There is an undeniable meaning in these actions, a meaning that we witness directly not just through the growth of life or its endless beauty, but through the inescapable joy we feel in taking them. Our creative actions, which are also acts of compassion, help us see that life is more than ready to answer our need for meaning with an overwhelming and abundant supply of it.