{"id":"5ee262726cee0700068376df","slug":"finding-meaning-in-an-imperfect-world-en","title":"Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World","audio_url":"https://hls.blinkist.io/bibs/5ee262726cee0700068376df/5ee351106cee070006dd51e9-T1591956258.m4a?Expires=1642613246&Signature=LJLiBBrpG0LbzQ8MdjmCTTugIBN2USj4b8QF1vmlPgcs1FZcMqUsQwf0eZUdRPZ1O0H~SzQ2mmP7thJ5dLa1ZuactwCuxcG~NL3k9xrgMbzt2nmqRp8ZvEhMH0FukB7PWb56~vpxn1JQ7dWbsUl0cBfXq2YrlU8EzBg4ihJCn5W4uqgIQWV2E6Sh4Z~sWLLyl2trVQYnWbgAjPbI7RfHKQ1XVDn1iBlbqqQJu6H~8oJ6D1vTQnRQTD4BjK2BamNvoYZODdvzg~TpOSiU5tLBOTrb3hOa2rLHKqFyJp~DC0wZ4t51OwojVhmwOvXamtq2NBL8lI2N9Vi4gZ5OBBw1SQ__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJXJM6BB7FFZXUB4A","chapters":[{"id":"5ee351106cee070006dd51e9","title":"When we ask about the meaning of life, we’re asking about value.","text":"

“Life is completely meaningless.” If a friend said that to you, how would you respond?

Well, if you were a philosopher, the first thing you’d try to do is clarify what exactly she means by “meaning.” That’s the best way to make sure you’re both talking about the same thing.

So what do we mean by “the meaning of life?” It comes down to one word: value.

The key message here is: When we ask about the meaning of life, we’re asking about value.

Look at it this way. When people say that their life has no meaning – or not enough meaning – what they’re usually saying is that their life doesn’t have enough value. That there just aren’t enough worthwhile things in their life.

Take Leo Tolstoy for example. You’d think that if anyone saw their life as full of meaning, it would be the world-famous novelist who wrote War and Peace. During Tolstoy’s lifetime people were already calling him one of the greatest Russian writers in history. On top of that, he had a beautiful estate in the country, where he lived with his loving wife and children. What more could anyone want?

Yet at one point in his life, Tolstoy found himself in a real crisis, writing about how meaningless it all was. Why? All his achievements had lost their value to him. As long as he thought writing great books that inspired countless people was worthwhile, he could be happy. But when that lost value to him, any meaning was lost too. Tolstoy’s worldview was reduced to the question, “So what?”

Whenever you find yourself thinking about the purpose of your existence, or ask what it is you’re living for, you’re also asking about value. You’re unlikely to be satisfied with just any purpose, after all – you need one that you truly find worthwhile.

Let’s say your neighbor spends his life collecting tea towels. Most of us wouldn’t say that’s enough to make life meaningful; we just don’t see collecting tea towels as a worthwhile purpose. If your neighbor agrees – if he sees collecting as an unfortunate obsession that he’d rather be rid of – then it won’t add value to his life.

If he sees it as worthwhile, however, there’s no reason that tea towels can’t give his life meaning. His collecting is his aim in life, his clear purpose. When looking for the meaning of life, any old goal won’t do – you need one that you believe has value.

"},{"id":"5ee3512a6cee070006837777","title":"You don’t need to be a perfectionist about the meaning of life.","text":"

Open a book by any philosopher, from the ancient Greeks to modern thinkers, and you’ll probably read that a meaningful life has to involve achieving something difficult.

That’s because many philosophers are perfectionists when it comes to the meaning of life. It’s not just philosophers, either. Perfectionism is one of the main reasons people tend to believe their lives are meaningless. They see life as all-or-nothing. If they aren’t doing something absolutely amazing – discovering the theory of relativity or devoting themselves to caring for the sick and poor – then life has no meaning.

Most of us aren’t an Einstein or a Mother Teresa, though, so the conclusion is obvious: most lives are meaningless. Right? Not really. Dig a little deeper, and perfectionism falls apart.

The key message here is: You don’t need to be a perfectionist about the meaning of life.

Life would be fantastic if everything was perfect, wouldn’t it? Well, maybe. But something doesn’t need to be perfect to be fantastic – or at least pretty great. And there are actually a few problems with perfectionism.

For one, it’s pretty inconsistently applied most of the time. People who are perfectionists about the meaning of life often don’t apply it to other areas of their lives. This leads to lots of double standards. For example, perfectionists don’t believe that eating in a restaurant is pointless unless it’s the finest French cuisine. Nor do they think they’re a failure if they don’t get a hundred percent on every test. They’d probably dismiss those ideas as absurd, in fact. So isn’t it also absurd to apply that kind of standard to the meaning of life?

It doesn’t end there. If you think about it, the demands that perfectionists place on themselves and others are actually really implausible. They’re unrealistic, and that means they can only lead to disappointment. We don’t expect a dog to drive a car, or throw away a chair because it can’t be used to boil water. It would be similarly odd to call one of your friends a huge failure because he can’t achieve as much in a day as Superman. But that’s exactly the logic perfectionism applies when it claims that our lives have to be extraordinary in some way to have meaning.

"},{"id":"5ee351406cee070006dd51ea","title":"Death doesn’t make life meaningless.","text":"

Imagine you’re given a huge heavy rock and told to push it up a hill. You get to the top, exhausted and out of breath, only to watch the rock roll back down. So down you go, to start your effort all over again.

Imagine spending your life that way. Pretty pointless, right?

Meet Sisyphus – a character from Greek mythology who was condemned by the Gods to repeat this act for all eternity. His story may be just a myth, but it still has meaning for all of us. In fact, according to famous French writer Albert Camus, we’re all Sisyphus; no matter what we achieve, no matter how high we push that boulder – in the end, it tumbles back down and we die.

Take this story at face value, and nothing we do ultimately has any value – or so the argument goes. But the value of life has nothing to do with whether or not it ends.

The key message here is: Death doesn’t make life meaningless.

The idea that death makes life meaningless is one that philosophy often grapples with. It boils down to one claim: things that don’t last forever can’t be valuable. But there’s no good reason to believe that. In fact, the way we actually live our lives suggests that most of us don’t believe it. If we did, we’d never do anything!

For example, do you like to have a clean kitchen floor? Do you mop it to keep it that way? If you’re like most people, you probably do – at least once in a while. And you surely appreciate it whenever someone in your household does pick up the mop.

But note that you enjoy that clean feeling despite the fact that it will be gone in a few days, when you’ll need to clean the floor all over again. To be sure, it would be nice if the floor stayed clean forever. It won’t, of course, but that doesn’t mean that we might as well leave it dirty. Even a temporarily clean floor has value.

This isn’t true only when it comes to cleaning, either. We appreciate all kinds of nice things, even if we know they’re not eternal.

Think about a beautiful tree in a garden – it’s guaranteed to die one day. But in the meantime, you can shelter from the sun in its shade, admire its lush greenery, and maybe even eat the apples it provides. Would you say the tree is pointless? Most of us would say that it has a lot of value. And what’s true for the tree is especially true for your life.

"},{"id":"5ee351546cee070006837778","title":"Life can be meaningful even if you don’t believe in free will.","text":"

Do you believe that everything that happens has a cause? The idea seems to make sense; things don’t just happen for no reason whatsoever, after all.

Let’s say you let go of your phone – what happens? It drops to the ground rather than flying off into the sky. That isn’t random. Clearly, gravity is responsible for your phone’s downward plunge.

Now, you might argue that free will – your freedom to choose – is responsible. But even if you did have a strange desire to drop your expensive smartphone, that desire also has a cause – even if you don’t know what it is.

If that’s so, then free will is an illusion. But if our choices aren’t made freely, doesn’t that render them completely meaningless? Far from it.

The key message here is: Life can be meaningful even if you don’t believe in free will.

This theory that if everything has a cause then all our actions and choices are determined by factors outside our control is called determinism. Among philosophers, it’s divisive – not everyone is convinced that there’s no such thing as free will. But let’s say it is true. Even then, it doesn’t follow that life is meaningless.

There are a lot of things that we value in life that don’t presuppose free will. Take sports. What makes someone a great athlete is to some extent genetic – and if you have the talent, developing it is never down to sheer will. It often depends on things outside your control, like whether or not your parents encouraged you to train. But it’s not the choice to pursue greatness that people admire; it’s the achievement of it. So even if a star athlete never consciously made the choice to become great, we still admire and value that person’s accomplishments. The same goes for music, literature, art, and countless other parts of life. No one would deny that Mozart or Shakespeare are geniuses, even if we know that they didn’t choose their talents.

Here’s a simple thought experiment to help make this clear. Imagine Shakespeare had a twin who lived at the same time, and made exactly the same life choices as he did – except that he didn’t happen to have his natural talents and, though he tried, never managed to write a single line worth reading. Would we admire both of them equally? Surely not. We’d care little for Shakespeare’s brother, despite his efforts. That goes to show that free will isn’t the most important thing when it comes to creating poetry – or anything that is valued and gives life meaning.

"},{"id":"5ee3516b6cee070006dd51eb","title":"Life lived for its own sake is plenty meaningful.","text":"

If you’ve spent any time around young children, you’ve probably played the why game. Say you’re putting your shoes on and they ask you why. “To go outside,” you answer. “Why?” comes the reply. To walk to the bus stop. Why? To catch a bus. Why? To get to the store. Why? And on it goes.

The game is silly, but it illustrates a point, too. We know the “why” for most things we do – the goal of an activity gives it meaning. This makes sense as long as that activity is a means to some end.

Following this logic, you might think that life itself also needs to have a goal in order to be meaningful. But life itself can be goal enough.

The key message here is: Life lived for its own sake is plenty meaningful.

Of course, you could always find an end to which your life is a means – and many people do. It can be something like advancing science, fighting for justice, or serving God.

But what if your life doesn’t have a goal? Can life still have meaning even if it’s not dedicated to anything beyond itself?

Yes. Absolutely. To see this, let’s make a distinction. Philosophers distinguish between extrinsic and intrinsic value. Something has extrinsic value if it’s a means to some valuable end – an instrument for achieving it, so to speak. But what about the goal itself? Not everything has value only as a means to something else; some things are valuable in themselves. That’s where intrinsic value comes in.

Go back to that why game. Why are you going to the store? To get candy. Why? To enjoy it. Why? For most of us, that’s where the need for justification stops. We tend to think that enjoyment is something that has value in itself. It doesn’t need to be a means to some other end.

A chain of questions and answers has to stop at some point, and that point usually comes when we mention something that we believe has intrinsic value. This could be enjoyment, justice, God – anything. There’s any number of things we believe have value in themselves, and life itself might just be one of those things. It can be an end in itself and valuable for its own sake, without needing some other goal to make it meaningful.

"},{"id":"5ee3517d6cee070006837779","title":"Losing meaning doesn’t make life meaningless.","text":"

Ever had the experience of working really hard to achieve a goal – say, saving up for a new car – only to find yourself feeling empty and losing interest when you actually get it? If so, what you came face to face with was the paradox of the end. Here’s how the paradox works: without a goal, we feel meaning is lacking. But after we attain the goal, all the meaning we got from having it is lost.

It might seem like when it comes to meaning, we just can’t win. And that can make life itself feel totally meaningless. The reality, however, is actually quite different.

The key message here is: Losing meaning doesn’t make life meaningless.

It would actually be a mistake to conclude that life is meaningless just because some of us experience the paradox of the end. That’s because not all goals lead to a loss of meaning once we’ve achieved them – many stay satisfying. Take raising a child, or overcoming a great obstacle in life like a serious illness. The meaning you derive from those things stays with you for life.

On top of that, there are also the goals that never really end. Think about something like being a great husband or a really good teacher – that’s not something you can achieve once and for all. It’s a lifelong project, and so is the satisfaction of striving for it.

And there’s more – experiencing the paradox isn’t inevitable. Whether or not we do is related to things like education and upbringing. Though we may not be able to do anything about these things in retrospect, we can change the way they continue to affect us.

This is true for the behaviors we’ve developed, too – take workaholism, for example. If you’re someone who can’t relax and celebrate no matter how much you’ve achieved, then you never emotionally reap the fruits of your efforts. That makes you more likely to experience the paradox of the end. But that doesn’t mean that it’s your eternal fate. Once you recognize the tendency, the door is open for a different approach.

"},{"id":"5ee3518f6cee070006dd51ec","title":"Life can be meaningful despite pain and suffering.","text":"

Let’s face it, the world can be a horrible place. Illness, injury, loss, grief, heartache, sorrow – the list goes on and on. If you’ve gone through tough times, you might be forgiven for concluding that all the pain and suffering in life make it meaningless. This is a common theme among philosophers.

However, despite the bad things, there’s space for a more hopeful view of meaning.

The key message here is: Life can be meaningful despite pain and suffering.

The most famous philosopher of suffering was the nineteenth-century German Arthur Schopenhauer. According to Schopenhauer, suffering predominates in life and even the smallest pleasure inevitably involves pain. For example, in order to enjoy a drink of water on a hot day, you first have to be thirsty – it’s the unpleasant lack of water that gives rise to a desire for it.

What’s more, once your thirst is quenched, you quickly forget about the pleasure the water gave you. In contrast, if you stayed thirsty, the pain you’d feel would be harder to forget and would last longer than the pleasure you get from quenching your thirst.

With every experience infused with suffering, Schopenhauer thought, all that’s left to conclude is that life is meaningless.

But there are some problems with his reasoning. Look at it logically: pain and meaning are separate things. In fact, history is full of people who lived worthwhile and meaningful lives under extreme conditions. For example, in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl describes how some prisoners in concentration camps managed to find meaning by helping others or planning and hoping for a better future.

If personal suffering isn’t enough to make life meaningless, what about all the suffering that people inflict on each other deliberately? The very existence of concentration camps might be enough to encourage a bleak view of human nature. It might even convince you that people are inherently evil.

Terrible things do happen, of course, and people probably do cause the vast majority of them. But it’s equally true that wonderful things happen; people help each other, improve the world, and produce works of great beauty. Just as it would be a mistake to ignore the bad parts of reality or human character, it’s also a mistake to ignore the good parts.

"},{"id":"5ee351b86cee07000683777a","title":"If your life lacks meaning, you can take steps to find it.","text":"

Once you realize that the usual arguments about how life is meaningless don’t really stand up to scrutiny, you’ll likely realize that there’s no good reason not to have a meaningful life. But while that’s a wonderful revelation, you might still be left struggling to find meaning in your own life.

Often, we feel life lacks meaning simply because we haven’t taken the time to understand what we really value and find meaningful. But through careful thinking and self-reflection, we can take steps to change that.

The key message here is: If your life lacks meaning, you can take steps to find it.

One thing that can help you find meaning in your life is structured, systematic reflection. Start by making a list of things that are already meaningful in your life. Then follow up on that by reflecting on what you’d like to add to your life and what you could get rid of to make it more meaningful. If this proves tricky, try taking a look at the lives of your friends and people you respect. What characteristics in others make you think their lives are meaningful?

It can also help to get some perspective. Imagine yourself, a few decades from now, finding out that you only have a few months – or even days – to live. What are you happy to have done and sad not to have done? Reminding yourself that life is finite will focus your thoughts on the things that truly matter.

What’s more, if you take a closer look, you might realize that your life is already full of meaning. All too often we only recognize what’s important to us when there is a threat that we might lose it.

But there’s no need to wait for adversity to help you appreciate the great things in your life. You can always sensitize yourself to the value that’s all around you.

Start by simply trying to be more aware of the tendency to be blind to value. Once you have, dig a bit deeper and try to understand why this might be difficult. Do you have perfectionist tendencies, for example? Recognizing your habits makes it easier for you to research ways to work on them.

Finally, you can make small changes and create new habits that will help you appreciate the value in your life. It comes down to trying to see all the small things in your life with fresh eyes.

"},{"id":"5ee351cb6cee070006dd51ed","title":"Final summary","text":"

The key message in these blinks:

Life can often seem meaningless, but we don’t need to be perfectionists about the meaning of life. Despite all the suffering and tragedy that exists in the world, there are many ways that we can find value in our lives. There’s no reason not to lead a meaningful life, and by taking concrete steps, you can make your life more meaningful.

Got feedback?

We’d love to hear what you think about our content! Just drop an email to remember@blinkist.com with Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World as the subject line and share your thoughts!

What to read next: The Power Of Meaning, by Emily Esfahani Smith

Now that you know that the usual arguments against a meaningful life don’t work, you might be ready to do something about the general malady of meaninglessness that often seems to engulf the modern world.

In The Power of Meaning, Emily Esfahani Smith argues that the crisis of meaning comes from our increasingly individualistic lifestyles and explains what we can do in response. From showing where the average person can invest her energy to explaining how she can adjust her focus, Smith offers a plethora of ways to live an even more meaningful life. So if you’re in need of some hands-on guidance when it comes to meaning, head on over to our blinks to The Power of Meaning.

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