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.
Now I'm confused as what you mean by "meaning" - or perhaps your specific term, the Holy Grail of Meaning. All, or at least most, of those eight essentials could be interpreted as meaning, especially the first one.
How do you differentiate meaning from these eight essentials? Or I suppose another way of framing my question is, what do you REALLY want with regards to your quest for meaning? What is not in those eight essentials that you call meaning?
Here's a metaphorical image. Imagine the eight essentials as a sieve. When you put your search through it, what remains? What is the remaining quality, the "ninth essential need?"
Posted by: jonnybardo | 02/15/2014 at 08:26 AM
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
Posted by: jonnybardo | 02/16/2014 at 06:39 AM