Thresholds

The quest for inner meaning

SEARCHING FOR MEANING REQUIRES
FACING OUR DOUBTS AND FEARS

"Thought of the Week" for July 5, 2004

...although the quest for inner meaning may be realized to be the only viable form of existence, it is by no means a life of continuous comfort, ease, and spiritual joy. In accepting this task, we have to constantly confront our deepest anxieties, our emptiness, our despair, our doubts; and there is nowhere for us to escape and hide from them. It is impossible to ever turn back, and at times it seems impossible to ever make any further progress. Within the dimension of being we experience life with greater intensity. In contrast, the values and goals to which we previously gave so much importance are seen to be exceedingly shallow and artificial.

Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others, p. 37.

Comment:

The call to greater meaning

by Reg Harris

Copyright © 2005 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. Updated October 7, 2007. All rights reserved. Apart from properly cited quotes and short excerpts, no part of this article can be copied or used in any form without written permission from the author. For permission to use, please contact me.

In the context of the Heroic Journey, Batchelor's comments here are especially important. One way of looking at the call to adventure in the journey is as a call to greater meaning in our lives. Accepting this call, however, means accepting considerable risk. Meaning is the core of what we are, so seeking new meaning forces us to renounce or release the meaning that we already are; it forces us, in a real sense, to renounce our sense of self.

Being, in the journey sense, is becoming―becoming what we are and what we can be―and once we perceive new potentials or new understanding in our lives, we are changed. Thus, as Batchelor writes, once we realize that our current meaning is limiting our lives, there is no turning back. We must accept the call to adventure or cease "being" in our own lives. In existential thought, this means accepting responsibility for our lives by engaging ourselves with the others and the world. It means making choices, even when we cannot fully understand the options or when we have incomplete or inadequate information.

Engagement is the key word in living life fully. To do anything but engage in the journey of our lives is to condemn ourselves to inauthenticity and to the bitterness and pain which it brings.