The Cost of Meaning

[This post is the fifth in a multi-part series called Everything You Thought You Knew About Meaning is Wrong. To be in touch about it, you can always reach me at [email protected] or visit me at https://ericmaisel.com/. Please enjoy the series!]

Of course, you want the experience of meaning. You want that feeling. But what if coaxing that feeling into existence comes at too high a cost?

Let’s say that you are craving the experience of meaning. You want that feeling. You have the hunch that you might get it from writing that book that you have always wanted to write, but you feel that writing that book is beyond you. You don’t feel smart enough to write it, talented enough to write it, you believe your newly-diagnosed ADHD would prevent you from writing it, and, well, you just don’t feel like writing it. You know that it would likely prove a meaning opportunity but you don’t feel up to seizing that opportunity.

At the same, you can’t actually tell yourself any of this, because that you would make you feel like a failure, and feeling like a failure is not a feeling that you’re wanting. So, instead of frankly airing the matter internally, you get the sudden inspiration to write a very different book, a much easier book based on your grandfather’s love letters sent from the front to your grandmother. This book will take a long time to write, which nicely puts off having to think about your real book, requires a lot of research, which nicely puts off having to do any writing soon, and feels “fun,” which is something you want in your life. So, you invest meaning in your grandfather book—you internally announce that working on it is the right thing to do—and you table your real book.

Reading your grandfather’s letters actually does provide you with the experience of meaning. Your plan is working! You are loving losing yourself in those hundreds of hand-written letters, some of which are amazingly poignant, some of which are witty, all of which paint a powerful picture of life at the frontlines. You look forward each day to diving into those letters. You do that month after month, making notes, researching life at the front, and remaining engrossed in your project. You feel pretty good and life feels pretty meaningful.

At the same time, two thoughts nag at you. First, you know, without being able to quite admit it, that you aren’t writing this book—no writing is happening—and that maybe you don’t actually want to write this book. You want this experience, as being with your grandfather and inhabiting his world is feeling rich and meaningful, but you’re not sure that you want the experience of buckling down and making sense of all this material. Second, you know that you are doing this in large measure to avoid having to tackle your real book, and that nagging thought is beginning to become more prominent, making it harder for this project to remain meaningful.

This project is sort of working to keep a meaning crisis at bay—but now only barely, and at significant costs. The costs are that you are deeply disappointing yourself, not getting your real book written, and quite likely precipitating a deeper meaning crisis when, as you know is all too likely to happen, you see through your own maneuvers and can no longer continue on this project. You can feel that the day is coming when all of this will come to head. Yes, maybe a new maneuver will occur to you at that point and you will find somewhere else to invest meaning—maybe you can keep this juggling act going. But you are sensing that maybe you can’t.

If you could put your life on a new footing, you might find the way to say to yourself, “You know, I’m completely aware that I don’t feel equal to writing my real book. I’ve known that for years. I could perhaps let that go entirely and finally say, ‘I am not writing that book, ever, period,’ and move on. That feels possible but very disappointing. Or I could say, ‘Let me approach my book, take some baby steps, not badmouth my efforts, not announce that I have no chance, and give it a shot.’ Yes, that thought makes me terribly anxious. But maybe it’s time? Maybe it’s time to face that mountain?”

If she could get to this point and then actually begin, would she experience writing her real book as meaningful? Almost certainly not at the beginning. To begin with, she would likely pester herself with thoughts like “I don’t know what I’m doing” and “I can’t do this” and “This is beyond me.” These are not thoughts likely to engender the feeling of meaning! But if she could stick it out, and not just make notes but actually do some writing, and begin to find her voice, and begin to make sense of her material, what then? Isn’t it possible that one Tuesday three months from now she might find herself exclaiming, much to her surprise, “I like that paragraph!” And might not a certain feeling well up in her—the feeling of meaning?

Would that singular feeling last? Well, probably not. But could she have it again, and now for the right reasons? Absolutely!

Remember the headline here: that while we may be able to coax the experience of meaning into existence, that coaxing can come with a high cost—even a ferociously high cost. We want that feeling to arise because we are living our life purposes, not because we’ve dreamed up some clever gambit that is providing us with the feeling of meaning at the cost of authenticity. Is this resonating, the idea that the feeling of meaning, as much as we crave it, can come at too high a cost? I hope it is.