Q. MEANING AS A SENSE OF WHOLENESS (2)

"Meaning" in terms of personal definition is only part of the search. There is also the question of how I fit with everything else. To ask "What is the meaning of life?" is to ask "How do all things fit together? not only "How do all branches of knowledge and learning form a unified and comprehensible whole?" but "How do the varieties and complexities of experience in life holds together in any kind of discernable pattern?" To ask what is the meaning of my life is to ask "How do I fit in with all else that is in nature and in history? What is my relationship with my family, my community, my country, everything else?" The question is asked out of a desire for wholeness, a need to know that "I fit."

The difference between meaning understood as "definition" and meaning understood as "purpose" is like the difference between the meaning of a word and the meaning of a string of words in a sentence.


"Divine Meal", by Tim Holmes
The importance of this question is underscored by the fact that sometimes we not only feel like a misfit, but perhaps we ought to be a misfit, a person who "hears the beat of a different drummer" as Thoreau put it, or is "not conformed to this world" as Paul says. The question really asks, "How do I fit in an overall scheme of things, not in spite of, but because of my refusal to fit comfortably with some things?" 

There will probably be no period in your life in which this question will seem so perplexing as in your college years. Here you are exposed to all forms of new experience, a variety of disciplines and new modes of thought, all in the midst of a felt need to make many of life's most important decisions concerning vocation, philosophy of life, maybe even marriage partner. It may be during these years more than any other that the quest for meaning in terms of a quest for a sense of wholeness is more urgently sought. 

Unfortunately, your university may not be a whole lot of help in this. One of my briefs against most contemporary higher education is that in that one social opportunity where varieties of disciplines and experience interface, there is little effort to deal with the quest for any overarching understanding of reality. One student, addressing an audience of college and university administrators put it this way: 

"The student who seeks practical insight into personal and public issues is frequently cautioned against any attempt to connect his classroom experience to life experience. Political scientists go to great length to make their students understand that their courses have nothing to do with practical politics. Introductory psychology lectures most frequently start with the precaution that it is a dangerous thing to go around attempting to apply concepts learned about neurosis and such. And then, of course, the lecture goes on to discuss the nervous system of the rat." 

What is needed is not some dogmatically and authoritatively imposed world view, but a growing intellectual and psychological sense of a "feeling of meaningfulness", a sense that the various academic and experiential "pieces" of creation's puzzle hold together, or at least are meant to. 

So some questions for you to raise with yourself might include: 

• What experiences are you having or what things are you learning that don't seem to fit with everything else? 

• Are there ways in which you feel as though you "don't fit?" How do you feel about that? is it OK or do you wish you fit better? 

 

TOOLS AND APPROACHES -Q. TOOLS AND APPROACHES (2)

Next:  - R. MEANING AS PURPOSE (3). 


 

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