Today's quote from my Zaadz Quotes inbox is at the bottom of this post. I like it because it speaks to some of the thinking I have been doing recently about life's "meaning" or "significance." Is there any thoughtful person for whom this is not, at least sometimes, a major preoccupation? Certainly, it has been for me. But, lately I have been thinking that the "search for meaning" itself is a seductive but ultimately non-fruitful diversion from life, itself. We can journal and "narrative" our little hearts out; we can spend years in therapy asking "why?" and proposing various answers... or we can just... live; and, preferably, we can live with some vitality, some sense of responsibility, some awareness, some compassion, some wisdom, and maybe even some joy... and let the "meaning of it all" take care of itself.
Human beings are "meaning-makers," but sometimes we let it take us way too far afield... sometimes, I think, we seem never to have outgrown the stage of childhood in which we endlessly ask the "why?" questions...
Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.
Viktor Frankl (1905 - 1997)
0 comments:
Post a Comment