Essay 24 - Social Construction and Reinforcement

We have been focusing on the pursuit of meaning as an individual journey. That is a good way to look at it and the journey will vary in difficulty from one person to the next. However, the easiest way to cultivate meaning is through an organization such as a religious, volunteer, or service organization because society has sanctioned and predefined these missions as useful, helpful, and meaningful. It would be hard to get donations or volunteers for any organization whose mission was to kill puppies or harass homeless people. So, society’s stamp of approval suggests that a lot of people find their mission meaningful.

Patterns, archetypes, metaphors and so on are socially constructed over time and refined so there is some social endorsement if not social sanctioning here as well. We all know that being a hero is a good thing and being a villain is a bad thing. You would not have a hero who beats children or tortures small animals as, over time, people have decided that these are not heroic traits. So, the traditional hero archetype feels better than, say, a serial killer archetype. Similarly, journeys of growth and exploration tend not to end in disaster unless it is somehow deserved because society has decided that such journeys are a good thing. Adopting socially endorsed archetypes is more likely to produce a meaningful outcome. One can make sense out of their life as a hero or even a flawed hero, but a serial killer hero is a bit of a stretch. Can one find meaning as the weird guy who lives in a dense forest, eats only berries, and talks to the spirit of the wind in a long dead Indian language? Well, it is possible. But it would require a lot more work than if the person were to adopt a more common socially endorsed character archetype.

This essay is 318 words long and the audio is just under 3 minutes.