Essay 6 - The Meaning(s) of Life

When we talk about the meaning of life, we are really talking about all three kinds of meaning and how they come together. Since each kind of meaning refers to a different thing, it is difficult to talk about the meaning of life without getting them all confused. So, let us take each one in turn.

The content of your life is a collection of objective and subjective experiences that you have had. Objective experiences are things that can be verified by other people, such as coming in third place in a marathon. Subjective experiences are things you thought or felt, such as being in disbelief that you managed to place in a race with hundreds of people. These experiences include things you have done, things you have thought about and things that have happened to you. Some of this is intentional and some is unintentional. But as you ponder your experiences you might wonder what it all adds up to. You might want to see your life as more than a collection of experiences. So, you look for an organizing principle.

This organizing principle is a reference to something outside of yourself that helps you to organize your content into a sense making framework. People often use archetypes such as the hero, or the martyr, or the person on a journey. They might find religious or spiritual frameworks. They may see themselves as a certain kind of character that repeats in literature or movies. There are virtually endless organizing frameworks to choose from. But some will resonate more than others producing a more positive feeling about one’s life.

This positive feeling is a feeling of meaning. One looks at their experiences through a specific organizing framework and that interpretation “feels” meaningful. Bringing these diverse kinds of meaning together, we can say that the meaning of life is the feeling that one gets when a person organizes the content of their life using a reference framework which in turn makes them feel as though their life makes sense.

You see, that wasn’t so bad. And, if your life is meaningful, now you know why. But what if your life is not as meaningful as you would like. Then what do you do? Well, to answer that, we will have to dig a little deeper.

This essay is almost 400 words and the audio is 3 minutes long.