Abraham Saikley - Meaning, Purpose, & Joy

Meaning, Purpose, & Joy

September 28, 2023

What is the meaning of life? I think it is all too easy to search for meaning in our lives in a slightly misguided way, not find anything terribly satisfying, become discouraged and potentially quite depressed, and then busy ourselves with all manner of things in attempt to ignore the nagging sense that something is missing or not quite right. Maybe we will latch onto some proxy for meaning or hop between various such proxies, especially those with pseudo-philosophies behind them that seem to hold water in the absence of real examination. But none of this ever really works very well, does it? No matter how entrenched we may become in one proxy for meaning or another, some part of us still knows when we are bullshitting ourselves. Here I will first argue that the search for meaning is bound to fail if approaching it purely intellectually, and then offer the best solution I know of, which based on my own inquiries and personal experiences can yield a powerful and stable sense of meaning, purpose, and joy.

There are plenty of popular candidates for finding meaning in our lives: morality, religion and the decrees of God(s) and religious texts and gurus, political allegiance, legacy, wealth, power, respect and admiration from others, pleasure, career success, striving for and achieving goals of any sort, patriotism, culture, family and other relationships, serving others, love, joy, reducing suffering and improving wellbeing for all sentient beings, understanding the fabric of reality, attaining enlightenment, yada yada yada. Some items on this list are probably more easily dismissible than others, but for each of them we can still ask “ok but why is that meaningful?” (or, similarly, “why does that matter?” or, “why does that have value?”). No matter how many times you might be able to offer an answer, the “why” question will always still be there, and eventually a lack of grounding for your philosophy of meaning will be revealed. Same goes for any other meaning candidate you might try in this thought experiment.

To argue this point more rigorously, consider that we quickly run into a version Agrippa’s trilemma (or in other words a turtle problem) when searching for meaning. Let’s return to any candidate for meaning you might like. Call it X. “Why is X meaningful?” is a question that naturally arises. This line of questioning introduced above can end in one of four possibilities, which together are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive, covering the entire logical space of possibilities. This is so because the options are generated with a series of binary yes or no questions.[1]

① describes an infinite regress situation. It’s hard if not impossible to imagine anyone coming up with answer after answer ad infinitum as to why X is meaningful, and even if this occurred, that this would actually yield any sense of meaning in our lives. ② describes circular reasoning. If X is meaningful because Y, Y is meaningful because Z, and Z is meaningful because X, then this gives us no reason to hold X as meaningful that was not already there in X to begin with. ③ describes the outcome of the thought experiment introduced above in the second paragraph, yielding no ground whatsoever for the meaningfulness of X. To accept ③ would force us to either accept quite literally every assertion without basis or be arbitrarily ad hoc about what we accept as a good explanation. ④ describes an interesting situation where the meaningfulness of X is grounded in something self-evident, self-truth-giving, or necessarily true. People have certainly tried to construct moral philosophies and discover meaning through logical deduction from such first principles, but I’m not aware of any such philosophies that have successfully answered this “why” question in a self-evident way through pure reason. “Why is that meaningful?” or “why does that matter?” or “why does that have value?” just always seem to be questions that stick around and remain applicable to any first principle in this domain. But if you happen to be aware of any such philosophies, then feel free to disregard this whole essay and stick with that (and explain the philosophy to me if you feel so inclined!).

Reason alone is insufficient to discern meaning or value, and this mode of inquiry into the meaning of life is destined to fail from the outset, or so I’ve argued. David Hume said it well when he wrote, “it is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.” Looking for meaning solely through reason is akin to shutting our eyes and then concluding there is no world around us to see; if we commit ourselves to blindness from the beginning then of course we won't see anything. In this way, reason, no matter how sophisticated, just isn't an appropriate tool to find meaning. No matter what, it will always lead into one of the four buckets sketched out above, none of which support meaning. Thus, if meaning does exist, we need something besides or in addition to the intellect to identify it.

The missing piece, I think, is a quiet inner knowing. Not a source of knowledge in the sense we normally think of, but rather sort of a pre-cognitive felt knowing as it were, perhaps located around the heart and solar plexus and distributed throughout the body. This description is admittedly fuzzy, but intentionally so, because to try to pin it down in precise terms would risk plopping us right back in the same intellect boat we just sailed around in for a while. From this place within, some things become self-evidently worthwhile while the tug of anything else begins to fall away. From this place, doubt about the veracity of the meaning or worthwhileness of the stuff landed on just seems a little bit silly and misguided. It sort of yields answers about the meaning of life and sort of just renders the question irrelevant. I don’t quite know how else to describe it. We could think of it is as a suitable, satisfying instance of option ④ mapped out in the logical space above, with the self-evident stuff coming from something other than reason.[2] Though for it to really feel true and satisfying, one must be inhabiting this place of inner knowing, not just thinking about it.

This isn’t just about feeling a feeling and following it with no questions asked. Rather, it’s a felt knowing underneath or more fundamental than any particular feeling state— underneath any instance of joy or sadness or fear or whatever else— that one must become quiet in order to hear. This is a subtle but important difference. Getting swept up in feeling states and taking them for indisputable truth is no better than blind devotion to the intellect. Another point to clarify is that reason and the intellect are certainly useful for identifying meaning. They can be massively helpful for framing our experiences while helping to avoid getting led astray by logical fallacies and other flowery nonsense that is rampant in psychological, spiritual, and philosophical circles. The intellect is a fantastic tool not to be shunned or demonized. It is just insufficient for the task of searching for meaning, and over-reliance on it obscures much of what gives human life the potential to be wonderful, I think.

Anyway, say you are still on board and this stuff about a quiet inner knowing in our chests sounds nice. How would one actually go about doing that? And what does life look like from there? While this essay isn’t meant to be the most detailed how-to guide on the topic (this will be another forthcoming project hopefully), in short I would sum it up as follows. Turn your heart into a home of freedom and compassion where you spend more time than not peacefully dwelling (far easier said than done for most of us). See what you find to be truer about yourself than anything else when there. Deepen into this and also do what you can to make your external life an authentic reflection of this. This is really all there is to do. This is all there ever has been to do, and all there ever will be to do. This place of inner knowing seems to be fertile ground for meaning, purpose, and joy. When dwelling in this place, all three seem to spring forth naturally. Regarding purpose, I basically see it as the actionable portion of meaning. The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu is an excellent book on all things related to joy.

Ok great, now how on earth does one do all of that? There are plenty of paths that all lead to roughly the same place. Which you explore doesn’t matter too much as long as it speaks to you at the time. Basically when anything calls to or enlivens your heart, take it utterly seriously and explore that thread and see where else it may lead, and do that iteratively. It could be a lived experience, or being inspired by someone else, or just a dormant drive or longing that you sense in yourself. The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life by Boyd Varty talks a lot about this process in a way I found illuminating. Additionally, if you are still reading this essay, it likely means there is already an interest or drive inside of you to head in this direction. This is more than enough to begin. Honor, deepen, and follow this part of yourself. If you believe there is the possibility even if slim that it might take you someplace wonderful, then perhaps meaning and purpose and motivation can be found right there already. I would also point to this beautiful poem:

Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself to this world
so worthy of rescue.

-Martha Postlethwaite

Among those living authentically to themselves with a sense of meaning, commonalities tend to include close loving relationships, service, art or other creative undertakings, and regular practice to deepen their quality of inner knowing. However, don’t get too caught up with lists like this or boxes to check in order to procure a meaningful life. Without the development of this quiet inner knowing, we could stare what we are seeking right in the face and look right past it or push it away, because no candidate for meaning could ever meet the strictly logical standard. No satisfactory answer could possibly be given if we are evaluating candidates strictly intellectually, divorced from our felt sense of what is real and true. Seeking guidance from other people can certainly be very useful here and offer an inkling, but hearing it from another person is still just an exercise in studying projections on the wall of Plato’s cave rather than seeing clearly the things themselves, so to speak. We have to “earn” the answers to questions about meaning and purpose and how to best use our time on this planet. By going out and doing stuff in the world, applying oneself, finding growth edges and feeling what it is like to hang out at those edges, turning oneself inside out, forging and refining the inner via the outer, thinking and feeling deeply, all with a sense of humility while seeking to find and return to what is true inside of us. There is just no other way. This is an ongoing process perhaps with no endpoint, but once getting sufficiently far, the questions about meaning and purpose that many of us seek just sort of lose much of their weight and are replaced by a subtle knowing that runs deeper. This knowing usually ebbs and flows, and at times can become hard to hear again, but once the door is opened it never fully closes.

For me personally, the things that have thus far most moved the needle in the direction of inner knowing are obsessive weightlifting and other maniacal physical pursuits as a teenager, a lot of solitude in the wilderness over the last 5-6 years while photographing landscapes that inspire me and stumbling into several numinous experiences, studying metaphysics and other areas of philosophy fairly deeply with some great professors, working with a skilled therapist while drawing largely on Internal Family Systems Therapy (see No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz or Self-Therapy by Jay Earley for introductions) as well as Tara Brach’s work (especially her book Radical Acceptance) and some research in neuroscience and evolutionary biology, and sharing romantic and platonic love with wonderful people in my life. And what I’ve landed on regarding the meaning of life is something in the neighborhood of utilitarianism, though in a way that feels more nuanced and vibrant than the lifeless calculus often associated with utilitarianism. I haven’t had any strong worries about meaning or purpose or anything else existential in a couple of years. It all actually feels rather straightforward and simple. In sharing this I don’t aim to convince anyone of any specific view; my intent is simply to encourage you to uncover what is alive and true in your own heart. As I argued near the beginning of this essay, I don’t think I can logically justify any of what I’ve landed on any more than I can logically justify worshipping the flying spaghetti monster— nor do I feel a need to. A great deal of lightness and freedom comes with all of this.

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[1] To object here, one must be prepared to assert that P & ~P. Perhaps with the exception of some weird cases described by dialetheism, asserting this for any P basically destroys logic and makes coherent thought and argumentation impossible.

[2] Graham Priest puts forth a somewhat similar idea in the last section of his book One, building an ethical system around promoting inner peace. From page 214: "The natural candidate is the antithesis of duhkha: equanimity, inner peace, or peace of mind. Most of us experience this sometimes, and we know when it happens that it is good."

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Images closely tied to some experiences in nature that have especially helped orient me in the direction of inner knowing: