In the Aussie calendar, tomorrow – the day after the Australia Day holiday – is the unofficial start to the working year. So today’s the last day we have a moment to pause and wonder what all our getting and spending – my usual subject matter – is meant to prove.
From a narrow biological and evolutionary perspective, our only purpose is to survive and replicate our genes, playing our part in the survival of our species. Apart from that, what we do on the way to our inevitable death is of little consequence.
Don’t like that idea? No one does. Enjoyable though we find the mechanics of reproduction, the human animal craves more than just sex, good meals and a bit of fun while we kill time until our funeral. We want somehow to find purpose and meaning in our lives.
Contrary to the message of much advertising and other marketing, this meaning can’t be supplied satisfactorily by the efforts of our business people, politicians and economists. Beneath the glitter, their message is simple: get back to your getting and spending. Just do more of it.
Is there anything scientists – as opposed to philosophers – can tell us about the meaning of life? Steve Taylor, a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University, can, even though he’s not religious.
In a recent article on The Conversation website, he tells of his work over the past 10 years talking to people who’ve had what he calls “suffering-induced transformational experiences”. These include being diagnosed with terminal cancer, suffering a bereavement, becoming seriously disabled, losing everything through addiction, or having a close encounter with death during combat.
“What all these people had in common is that after undergoing intense suffering they felt they had ‘woken up’. They stopped taking life, the world and other people for granted and gained a massive sense of appreciation for everything,” he says.
They spoke of a sense of the preciousness of life, their own bodies, the other people in their lives and the beauty and wonder of nature. They felt a new sense of connection with other people, the natural world and the universe, he says.
“They became less materialistic and more altruistic. Possessions and career advancement became trivial, while love, creativity and altruism became much more important. They felt intensely alive.”
A man who experienced a transformation due to bereavement spoke explicitly about meaning, describing how his “goals changed from wanting to have as much money as possible to wishing to be the best person possible”.
He added: “before, I would say I didn’t really have any sense of a meaning of life. However, [now] I feel the meaning of life is to learn, grow and experience.”
Taylor stresses that none of these people were, or became, religious. The changes weren’t merely temporary and, in most cases, remained stable over many years.
He says we don’t have to go through intense suffering to experience these effects. “There are also certain temporary states of being when we can sense meaning. I call these ‘awakening experiences’.”
Usually they occur when our minds are fairly quiet and we feel at ease with ourselves. When we’re walking in the countryside, swimming in the ocean, or after we’ve meditated, or had sex.
“We find the meaning of life when we ‘wake up’ and experience life and the world more fully. In these terms, the sense that life is meaningless is a distorted and limited view that comes when we are slightly ‘asleep’.”
So what’s the meaning of life, according to Taylor? “Put simply, the meaning of life is life itself.”
Wow. From my own reading of what psychologists tell us about life satisfaction, let me add two more-prosaic points. First, humans are social animals and we get much of our satisfaction from our relationships with our family, in particular, and also with our friends.
When economists and politicians try to make us more prosperous materially without ever considering what strain they may be putting on our relationships, they’re not doing us any favours. They – like us, so often – are mistaking the means for the end. Cannibalising our ends to improve our means doesn’t leave us better off.
Second, the simple economic model assumes work is an unpleasant means to the wonderful end of having money to buy things. But, as they say, if you can find a job you like – or get more joy from the job you have – you’ll never have to work.
If politicians, economists and the business people we work for put more emphasis on helping us find satisfaction from our work, they’d be adding more meaning to our lives (and theirs).
