McMahon's Search for Meaning

Are All Chimeras Equal?

Chapter 17

 

Are All Chimeras Equal?

 

 Jonny challenges my last chapter’s depressing claim that chimeras all lead to disappointment and misery:

 

What if all chimeras were not equal? What if some provided more lasting and/or deep satisfaction?

 

Perhaps the underlying "chimeric dynamics" are the same, but certainly a homemade, organic meal is more satisfying than a Happy Meal (or at least has less deleterious results!).

 

Another angle on this is that I've found that there are things that make you chase the carrot and thus impossible to satisfy, and even when you get it you look around and say, what's next? And then there are the experiences or activities that make you feel better about everything. The former is an idea, a chimera, while the latter is a kind of creative engagement. So for instance, the chimera might be "becoming a famous, wealthy novelist," and the latter might be "actively and regularly engaging in the creative process of writing."

 

The problem is that our culture is so focused on the chimera – it’s the driving engine of consumerism - and we're dissociated from process orientation, and we want it all NOW and don't want to cultivate the process.

 

The core of Taoism is simple and Alan Watts described it best (and I paraphrase): Resist the current of the river and you'll suffer, but if you flow with the current, you'll have the whole power of the river behind you.

 

From that perspective, chimeras are like rocks in the river that we cling onto but, in the end, are inherently temporary and need to be let go of. Yet if we change our orientation, the chimeras are no longer "bad" or even harmful - they're part of the process and augment our experience.

 

 

 

 

 

What If Meaning Exists in Our Head as a Mass Delusion?

Chapter 16

 

What If Meaning Exists in Our Heads as a Mass Delusion?

 

 A life of meaning sounds good, but not all meaning is the same. The person who runs a food bank or builds houses for poor people has a different meaning than someone who is driven by blind ambition and calls his ambition “meaning.” But the person who helps others and the person who wants to get rich are both driven people. They wake up in the morning eager to work on achieving their goals.

 

What if these “meanings” were delusional, simply existing in our head so that we believed in their meaningfulness and therefore we felt motivated to live our life with energy and vitality?

 

If that’s the case, then we are creatures driven by delusions. We live for the ideas of things, not the things themselves. When we become driven by the idea of something more than its reality, we call that a chimera, a mirage that we follow until the chimera destroys or kills us.

 

For example, I knew a lot of guys in their twenties who pursued beautiful women who they knew were evil. These were women who were greedy, materialistic, manipulative, sociopathic, cutthroats. But the men needed to “climb that mountain, reach mountaintop and scream ‘I’m Number One!’” Their chimera was to assert their dominance over other men. It was their “meaning,” a stupid “meaning” at that. But no matter how stupid or smart some “meanings” are, perhaps their all beliefs we have and as beliefs go they’re merely that, rooted inside our imagination than any kind of objective reality. But we’re hard-wired to be motivated and animated by something and because we’re imaginative creatures, we are beholden to the chimera.

 

Here’s the thing I tell my students: “A chimera will kick your ass. In the end, if you pursue your chimera and acquire it, you’ll be inevitably disillusioned, disenchanted, and disappointed. Or as George Bernard Shaw famously said, and I paraphrase, there are two tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want in life. The other is getting it.”

 

“If you pursue your chimera,” I tell my students, “You’ll be about an 8 on the Misery Scale.

 

“But here’s the thing: If you don’t have a chimera, your life will be so empty you’ll spend all your time eating at buffets and posting selfies on Facebook. Without a chimera, your depression will be even more acute. You’ll be a full 10 on the Misery Scale.”

 

Am I a teacher or a Priest of Despair? What kind of instructor gives his young and impressionable students a choice between an 8 and a 10 of Sorrow and Misery? Clearly,  I am woefully unqualified to teach Viktor Frankl’s masterpiece.

 

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Is “Having Your Needs Met” the Same as “Meaning”?

Chapter 15

Is “Having Your Needs Met” the Same as “Meaning”?

 The short answer is yes. Viktor Frankl says we must have meaning, a purpose outside ourselves to free us of, among other things, self-centeredness and vanity, and a courageous attitude toward inevitable suffering. This condition is contained in what I call the Eight Essential Needs: a belief or devotion to someone or something larger than ourselves; self-awareness; humility; a job compatible with our personality; a mate or reproductive success; belonging and a sense of connection to others; enough time for recreation; and moral character.

For years I taught my students that the Eight Essential Needs were just common sense and common wisdom and that Frankl was teaching a more rarified form of meaning, one that requires more heroism and self-sacrifice. But the more I look at the Eight Essential Needs, especially number one, being devoted to something larger than oneself, and number eight, having moral character, I see in fact that the Eight Essential Needs do fit Frankl’s definition of meaning.

I suppose I can berate myself for my error, or take my newfound understanding as part of the evolution of having the privilege of teaching Viktor Frankl’s masterpiece over the last decade.

I had better choose the latter and move forward.

 

 

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Making the Jump from the Existential to the Spiritual in Stardust Memories

Jonny writes:

I just re-watched Stardust Memories for maybe the 5th or 6th time - one of Woody's best. Anyhow, I don't know when you last saw it, or if you've seen it, but I really recommend watching it as it is isomorphic to this blog. I love the "answer" Woody comes to at the end - in a way, he makes the jump from the existential to the spiritual, although not calling it that. But the last scene with Dory is just beautiful.

I hate cutting it out of the movie, but here's the two-minute scene I'm talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3GOu0HuMP4

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Ninety-Nine Percent of My Students Say, “Forget Meaning, Just Give Me the Eight Essential Needs”

Chapter 14

 

Ninety-Nine Percent of My Students Say, “Forget Meaning, Just Give Me the Eight Essential Needs”

 

 

 

 After I explain the Eight Essential Needs to my students, I ask them if, assuming they could have those eight needs met, would they still want meaning and about 99% of them say “Forget it, give me the eight essential needs and I could care less about meaning.” The Eight Essential Needs include the following:

 

One. We need to believe in something larger than ourselves so we don't become crushed by the weight of our inclination for self-centeredness and narcissism.

 

We can't believe in just anything. There's a huge caveat or condition: This "thing" we believe in should be good, conducive to our maturity and dignity and the dignity and respect of others.We can't, for example, believe in killing others to achieve some political goal motivated by a lust for power. Then we are monsters like Pol Pot and Stalin and Hitler.

 

If this thing is good, it doesn't necessarily create meaning. For example, if we develop an interest in martial arts, math, chess, bicycling, swimming, etc., all these things are good and help us get the focus of our self, but they aren't the Holy Grail of Meaning.

 

Two. We need self-awareness, AKA the Third Eye (as Jerry Seinfeld calls it) or metacognition so that we can make more intelligent and moral choices rather than being dragged down by the reptilian, primitive, irrational part of our brain. But this too falls short of meaning.

 

Three. We need humility to learn from our mistakes so we can become stronger and wiser. Again, humility is great, but not the same as meaning.

 

Four. We need a good job that uses our skills and makes us feel needed and pays us so we can buy stuff we want and feel secure and comfortable. This is good, too, but it isn't meaning.

 

Five. We need reproductive success. This means finding a mate whom we find desirable and attractive and a complement to our existence. This is great, but it isn't meaning.

 

Six. We need a sense of belonging and meaningful friendships. This too is great, but it is not meaning.

 

Seven. We need free time to play and enjoy recreation as a counterbalance to our hard work. Again, this is a need, but it isn't meaning.

 

Eight. We need moral character, the kind that compels us to have respect for others and ourselves and to have a reverence for life. In fact, we don't find meaning outside of ourselves. Meaning is born from our moral character.

 

We can have all these 8 things and achieve a certain satisfaction in our growth, maturity, and success and still not have meaning or at least not the heroic kind evidenced by Viktor Frankl in his book.

 

As a result, we can have the 8 Essential Things and go through life happy enough without having meaning. Our life is full enough based on our moral growth, our work, our love life, our friendships, and our human connections that we don't seek any meaning beyond this.

 

Part of me believes this and is therefore more evidence that I am an unworthy Viktor Frankl disciple.

 

 

 

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Is Pondering the “Meaning of Life” a Pastime for the Privileged?

Chapter 13

Is Pondering the “Meaning of Life” a Pastime for the Privileged?

 

On one hand, an argument could be made that my college students should consider “the meaning of life” during the short period they’ll have the time to approach it with any intellectual rigor. Most will move on to the “business of life” after college without the time, energy, or interest for such intellectual pursuits.

Is philosophy a privileged pastime? Is it an indulgence? Or as Ed writes: “At worst I would say having time to ponder philosophy is elitist, or something the majority of humanity does not have the time to worry about that much.”

So what is Man’s Search for Meaning then? A treatise crucial for restoring sanity to the human race? Or another philosophical polemic to be combed over by intellectual elites? My agnosticism on the issue is yet more evidence that I am not worthy of teaching Frankl’s masterpiece.

 

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When Survival Clashes with Meaning

Chapter 12

 

When Survival Clashes with Meaning

 

 

Will my students really change as a result of my teaching them Man’s Search for Meaning? Will I change? Does anyone really change when reading an inspirational book or seeing a film or some other work of art? We may feel the momentarily inspired, we may passionately discuss the themes with each other, we may make resolutions to change, but it seems more often than not we just resort to our mediocre, aimless behavior. Frankl writes about how people saw the film, based on a Tolstoy novel, Resurrection, and felt compelled to face their own mortality by living a life worthy of suffering and death but this was only a transitory feeling soon forgotten by the pursuit of earthly comforts and pleasures: “After the picture we went to the nearest café, and over a cup of coffee and a sandwich we forgot the strange metaphysical thoughts which for one moment had crossed our minds. But when we ourselves were confronted with a great destiny and faced with the decision of meeting it with equal spiritual greatness, by then we had forgotten our youthful resolution of long ago, and we failed.”

 

Most of us want to do good, most of us want to live a life of meaning, most of us would rather be worthy of suffering, but even decent conscientious people easily get lulled back into a life of self-interest and laxity. People watch great films and make resolutions that last a few minutes or a few days at most. Or people do the same watching Oprah, or going to church, or reading Man’s Search for Meaning. Let me give you another example. My officemate teaches health classes and one subject is smoking and its dangers. He shows a video of a doctor examining two lungs, sitting like slabs of meat, on two examination tables. The smoker’s lungs are bloated and sickly yellow. The students gag at the sight of those diseased lungs, but during the break my officemate reports that the smokers go outside the classroom and light up their cigarettes.

 

Bad habits and addictions aren’t the only things that hard difficult, if not impossible to change. There is also the matter of self-interest causing us to compromise our principles. Let me give you a personal example. A few years ago, I found my conscience bothered by eating animal products. I had read about the horrors and cruelties of factory farming and felt compelled to become a vegetarian, if not an outright vegan. My principled diet did not last long. I found I could not get sated on a vegetarian diet and was overeating carbohydrates and sugars resulting in weight gain. Then I read The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith who writes about getting all sorts of medical problems from forcing herself to be a vegan for twenty years. Then my GP told me he was treating two morbidly obese patients who are vegetarians. And he added that malnutrition is worst in vegetarian cultures, including India. Then my wife Carrie wanted to get pregnant and she wanted us both to eat animal protein to increase my potency and her fertility. And then we had twin girls and our pediatrician said human beings are omnivores and should eat some meat. So in the end my self-interest compromised my principles. I eat some animal protein, I try to buy organic, but in the end I see principled eating as futile. The organic market is a boutique industry catering to less than one percent of the population. The horrors animals face as they’re raised and slaughtered at the butchering factories continues. And some would argue that we should not care about the animals as long as there are starving people in the world. In other words, our survival is a priority over principles and values.

 

A cynical voice in me says we don’t live by values and meaning. We live by what’s best for us. And the same voice says few people really change when confronted with the necessary changes to lead a meaningful life that Frankl explains.

 

My cynical voice also tells me that I should not even be thinking about meaning at all, that such a foray into this subject is for those who have no life, for those who do not live fully. I am reminded of Eric Weiner’s discussion of thinking too much when he visited Thailand. He writes that “The Thais, I suppose, are too busy being happy to think about happiness.” Perhaps the same is true of meaning. Perhaps if I were too busy leading a meaningful life, I would be too busy to be thinking about meaning.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Parable of the Man Who Over-Thought His Way Out of Life

Chapter 11

The Parable of the Man Who Over-Thought His Way Out of Life

 

Viktor Frankl is correct to warn us of the “existential vacuum,” an emptiness that makes us desperate and resort to mindless consumerism, a condition that turns us into debased creatures, more like animals than humans. Whenever I think of the human being as Sated, Mindless Beast, I am reminded of a delicious passage from a Tobias Wolff short story, “Smorgasbord,” in which the narrator describes the patrons of an all-you-can-eat buffet stuffing themselves:

They ducked their heads low to receive their food, and while they chewed it up they looked around suspiciously and circled their plates with their forearms. A big family to our left was the worst. There was something competitive and desperate about them; they seemed to be eating their way toward a condition where they would never have to eat again. You would have thought they were refuges from a great hunger, that outside these walls the land was afflicted with drought and barrenness. I felt a kind of desperation myself; I felt like I was growing emptier with every bite I took.

Wolff observes a painful irony between the feeders’ overeating accompanying a state of spiritual evisceration. History is full of such lost souls, those mindless consumers of bread and circus, who warn us to flee their empty existence and seek refuge in the life of the mind, the world of the intellect, in which we try to free ourselves through honest self-inventory and analysis, but often I fear that I, and others, error in the extreme of thinking, becoming too pensive for our own good.

I know people who have never read Man’s Search for Meaning, who don’t contemplate meaning or happiness and are not mindless consumers falling prey to the “existential vacuum.” They are so busy living a life rich with connection to their family, friends, and community that they have never bothered to ponder philosophy or meaning of life questions. They may not qualify as having a life of meaning, as Frankl defines it, but they are good, decent, happy people. And I would not disturb them from their rich life by vexing them with my existential questions.

Often I worry that I over-think meaning and that this can be dangerous. To confirm my anxieties, one of my students, from China, wrote about the topic of over-thinking meaning in his Viktor Frankl essay, which focused on a story that the student’s father had told him. The essay, “The Man Who Over-Thought His Way Out of Life” was about a young man who asked God the meaning of life. God told the young man to go to the sea and lift the rocks. God promised him that eventually he’d find underneath one of the rocks the answer he was looking for. The man lifted millions of rocks over the decades until he was a hundred years old. There was only one rock remaining by the seaside. At last, this must be the rock, the old man thought to himself. But when he lifted the rock, there was no answer beneath it. The old man looked into the sky, summoned God and told him he had done as God had instructed him, but he had found nothing. “Because,” God said, “there is no meaning, you idiot.” Laughing manically, God said, “I tricked you!”

Knowing he had wasted his entire existence on a fool’s errand, the hundred-year-old man shook his fist at God, cursed at him, and died.

I’m confidant Viktor Frankl would agree with the fable’s moral, that meaning is not an abstraction to be pursued but is part of the life we live and that the man who spent his life lifting stones failed to live any kind of life at all.

Teaching Man’s Search for Meaning, I fear I over-think meaning and stand at the coastline, millions of rocks upturned yet with more unanswered questions than I had before I started the venture. I am so lost, so mired in the abyss of ignorance that surely I am unworthy of teaching Frankl’s masterpiece.

 

 

 

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When Self-Sacrifice Can be a Bad Thing for Parents and Their Children

Chapter 10

 

When Self-Sacrifice Can be a Bad Thing for Parents and Their Children

 

 Perhaps driven by parental guilt and competitiveness, there is this extreme ideal of self-sacrifice for our children, our beliefs, our cause and our mission that becomes misguided. I agree with Viktor Frankl who writes in the Preface to Man’s Search for Meaning that there was a constant message he had for his students based on the importance of self-sacrifice:

 

“Don’t aim for success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run—in the long run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.”

 

Too many parents misinterpret the wisdom of Frankl’s words, especially the part of “one’s surrender to a person other than oneself,” with the idea that complete surrender to their children is a measure of their parental devotion. One danger of this extreme ideology of self-sacrifice is that in the service of their children that parents have forgotten to be a self and as a result have failed to be a somebody with character and depth for the children to look up to.

 

I didn’t think of this parental fallacy until I read these insightful words from Jonny:

 

I don't feel like I really landed on earth until my first daughter was born. Before that, Real Life was always in the future, but as soon as she screamed her way into the world, my life mattered. Or to put it another way, "The shit got real."

 

That said, I've come to feel strongly that the best way for me to serve my daughters and their unfolding is through serving my own. Not in a self-serving manner, but that by actualizing myself, my own dreams, and creating my own meaning, that I can provide an example for my daughters. The last thing I'd want is for them to grow up and see that their father hasn't done what he has tried to help them do: discover and follow their bliss.

 

 

 

 

 

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"Viktor Frankl Would Want You to Find Your Own Path"

Chapter 9

"Viktor Frankl Would Want You to Find Your Own Path"

 

Jonny thinks my worthiness, or not, of teaching Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning should be rooted in something other than being an orthodox Frankl disciple:

I'm starting to think that while on one level you are questioning your worthiness to teach Frankl, and on another you are asking whether you can actualize Frankl's principles in your life, on an even deeper level you are going through a process of transcending Frankl himself and coming to your own philosophy of life, that incorporates elements of Frankl, but also of CK, Dangerfield, and numerous other influences into a gestalt uniquely your own. Forgive my forthrightness, but it is almost like you are asking (yourself) for permission to move beyond Frankl, who seems to be your spiritual-philosophical father figure.

I mean, its almost like you have three choices: 1) You can stay as you are, and live in the pain of not living up to the ideals of Frankl, your spiritual-philosophical father figure; 2) You can actualize Frankl's ideals in your life, and be a "baby Frankl"; 3) You can forge your own path. Its probably clear where my bias is.

I'm with Freud in that I believe we all must "kill our father." Not literally, of course, and not even necessarily (or only) our actual biological father, but our FATHERS. This, I think, is what Frankl would want of you: find your own path. Don't seek to actualize his ideals, but find what is real for you and actualize that. In the end it isn't a negation of Frankl, but it is a transformation of what he is saying into something that is living and real for you.

Certainly not all of us can be great philosophers, but we can all actualize ourselves, we can accept and engage our uniqueness. This is something I occasionally tell my students: the universe doesn't want you (the student) to be the fellow classmate you're jealous of, or your parent that wants you to be a better version of them, or your older sibling, or your hero; the universe wants you to be you, as the unique expression that you are.

This is my personal philosophy of life, so I realize it is subjective - but it is one that serves everyone, that is embracing of any and all variants in that it asks us to actualize who we are, rather than who think we should be. It isn't the easy path, but it is the most fulfilling, I think. Be who you are! It sounds trite, but it is deeply powerful, I think - one of those core truths that we all overlook, and in so doing miss the main course.