A Place of Meaning
Where is yours?
Are we looking for causes to believe in, or communities to belong to? That’s a question I was recently asked over coffee with a friend who, by the way, still has an incredible knack for challenging my thinking in unorthodox ways. That question has stuck with me for the past few weeks and has led to some self-examination: “In my life right now, what am I looking for?”
As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I picked up playing football again after an extended period off. A decade of not playing combined with my advanced footballing age has meant this has been somewhat of a challenge. Yet, despite my own limitations, I’m enjoying it. Why? The cause is simple: win games. It’s tangible, meaning it’s a clear and definitive objective. There is no confusion on what is motivating myself and the team. It’s attainable, meaning that what we are setting out to do can be achieved through collective effort and complementary competencies. It’s also definable, meaning our weekly goal is precisely specified. And, it’s measurable, meaning every week we can see if we are achieving what we have set out to do, as the points on the table show us.
Every Saturday around the world billions play a simple game for a simple cause, and every individual involved will tell you the same truth: the community created around this simple game gives them a sense of meaning. Why is this?
We are all hard-wired for meaning. Our minds construct meaning before we even perceive things as objects. When you approach a cliff, you initially don’t see the cliff, you see something you could fall off. The meaning comes first. Finding true meaning in our lives is a pursuit that at times can feel fracturing. That is why we often give up pursuing it. But, such is our need for it, we will often choose destructive relationships or belonging to damaging communities, rather than existing without meaning at all.
One of my favourite writers, Yuval Noah Harari, defines in his book, Homo Deus, our current world as meaningless. He writes:
“Modern culture rejects the belief in a great cosmic plan. We are not actors in any larger-than-life drama. Life has no script, no playwright, no director, no producer –and no meaning. To the best of our scientific understanding, the universe is a blind and purposeless process, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. During our infinitesimally brief stay on our tiny speck of a planet, we fret and strut this way and that, and then are heard of no more. Since there is no script, and since humans fulfill no role in any great drama, terrible things might befall us and no power will come to save us or give meaning to our suffering. There won’t be a happy ending, or a bad ending, or any ending at all. Things just happen, one after the other. The modern world does not believe in purpose, only in cause. If modernity has a motto, it is ‘**** happens’.”
If this is indeed true and our lives are utterly meaningless, why do I feel joy playing football again? Why do I feel joy when I watched my son score two tries for his U10’s rugby team at Twickenham? Why do I feel joy when a random song from my Spotify playlist comes on, or cooking for my family, or the thousands of times a week I laugh at something irreverent?
If life has no meaning, then friendship is unnecessary. Same for things like music, art, or sport; they have no innate survival value. Yet as we know, they are all things that give meaning to survival. If I have learned anything in my life, it is that the things of ultimate meaning are found in the things we enjoy the most.
Perhaps finding a place of meaning is finding a place that gives us joy? Is the organisation you lead a place people enjoy coming to? I wonder if you posed this question to your organisation what the genuine response would be. I’ve realised that whatever we truly enjoy, we, in turn, praise it as well, as the praise completes the enjoyment of it. Have you ever read a book or watched a TV series and had the overwhelming desire to share it? Of course you have. Most of our lives are spent sharing what we enjoy and finding communities based around that enjoyment and common interest…
Whatever I have led, my purpose has always been the same: can we become a place of meaning? Life is difficult and full of tragedy. But, for a brief moment every week, could we be a place where people find some joy? If we can accomplish that, then we can actually make a difference in someone’s life. After all, isn’t that what gives life meaning?