Being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone other than oneself—be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or to another person to love—the more human he is.
—Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
The word “meaning” refers most simply to the definition of a word or a symbol. Meaning also refers to importance, that is, significance or impact. “Meaningful” refers to a depth in the level at which we cognitively understand and bodily experience something.
We say our life is meaningful when it makes a difference, has a purpose, yields personal fulfillment. We feel our life is meaningful when we are committed to something greater than ourselves, when we believe we have a place in the world, when we feel that we are here for a reason, that our life matters, that we matter. This happens most felicitously when we love what we do, when we are enjoying the beauty of something, making a contribution to others, dedicating ourselves to a cause. We can now understand why Viktor Frankl in the quotation above sees a link between meaning and a loving life purpose.
The Brain’s Role in Finding Meaning
Finding meaning also has a cellular component. The brain naturally tries to organize data, no matter how random, into intelligible concepts, meaningful patterns, or coherent concepts. This may be why we see a face in a cloud. Such an orientation is physical because it involves brain cells. Likewise, we feel a physical sensation of relief or satisfaction when we find order in what was unintelligible before.
Bodily Experience in Understanding Meaning
We also notice a physical reaction that shows us what something means to us. Our response can be aesthetic, erotic, suspenseful, attractive, repulsive, absorbing, or disturbing. We might feel a lump in our throat, a constriction in our chest, or an opening in our heart area. These are telltale signs of meaning.
Our bodily experience might show us a meaning that our mind can’t fathom or define. This is a here-and-now experience without projections and judgments; the very definition of mindfulness. Such mindful awareness is thus a way of contacting meaning. We are seeing something as it is. This allows its significance to come through. Our body keeps joining in on our longings, as it does on anything of importance.
Proportionality of Meaning
We notice that some things have just the level of meaning that is proportional to what they look like. For instance, the meaning of a stop sign is “Stop!” If the sight of a stop sign arouses us to rage, we have surely added a meaning that was not meant to be there.
This enlarging of meaning certainly happens in an addiction. In fact, giving something a larger meaning than fits the bill is a sign of addiction. For instance, food is meant to be fuel and enjoyment. When we add meanings like control, escape from boredom, filling our inner emptiness, giving ourselves comfort, recalling the safety of childhood, we are adding meanings that can lead to a misuse of food. Likewise, alcohol is meant for social fun, but when we add a meaning like escape from feelings, we are using it for more than what constitutes social drinking, its healthy purpose. Little Johnny Walker is now walking all over us. Sex means love and mutuality, but when we use it to boost our ego or as a weapon, it takes on meanings that cancel intimacy, the wonderful meaning it could have had.
Our strong reactions to others can signal to us that we are investing some words or actions with a bigger meaning than is appropriate to the circumstance. Here is an example: We were criticized and judged in childhood by one or both of our parents. Because of that experience, criticism has become bigger to us than the extent of its definition in the dictionary.
Correcting Misinterpretations of Meaning
Our psychological work as adults is to see how many concepts have become inflated or deformed by our past experience and turned into projections. The work is grieving the past and letting go of it. Then, such experiences as being criticized in the present as we were in the past become bite-sized and fully digestible en route to excretion.
Indeed, to know that the past influences us is to have begun being free of it. Likewise, to be aware of our limitations is already to have begun transcending them.
Adapted from my book, The Five Longings: What We’ve Always Wanted and Already Have.