The Psychology Of Finding Meaning In Life - John Vervaeke

Given that we are biological creatures, why do we need meaning? Why do humans need to do all this extra work in order to be satisfied with life?

Huh, well, uh, I have to tell you that, um, I've been, uh, going through a, uh, since the publication of the book, I've been going through a serious reflection on this question again, uh, and going, uh, deeper into it. Um, there's many levels of answering that question. At one level, uh, meaning has to do with sensemaking. It has to do with how we p- properly pay attention to the right kind of information that can allow us to reliably solve a wide variety of problems in a wide variety of domains. (clears throat) And that's one aspect of meaning, that sort of agentic aspect. Um, but, uh, consonant with that is we f- we need to be connected to other people because most of our problem-solving is done in connection with other people. So, there's an initial sensemaking dimension. This is often talked about as sort of coherence in the meaning and life literature. Does your world sort of... Is your sensemaking making sense to you, is, is how I sometimes put it. Like, uh, the sensemaking is what you're doing sort of automatically, and when you reflect on it, you go, "Yeah, that makes sense. My l- my world isn't absurd," or things like that. (clears throat) And then, um, we need to feel connected to other people because most of our, um, problem-solving, uh, is done via other people. That's our great superpower. Individually, biologically, as you framed it, we're pretty pathetic animals, you know. A really angry dog can take us out. Um, and, and so, our superpower is we can coordinate together, um, and, uh, and, you know, get some... train some of those dogs and sharpen some of those sticks and then kill anything on the planet. Uh, and so we need to be connected to other people, and that brings with it its own special problem, uh, my friend Greg Enriquez made sort of prevalent. Uh, we developed a superpower of connecting and coordinating called language. And language does something really, really powerful in, in helping us coordinate, but it also does something really novel. It makes, uh, our s- our, uh, th- the content of our minds, uh, uh, accessible. We're sort of exposed to each other in a way in which no other organism is exposed to its c- its, its fellow, uh, creatures. And so, we have to also develop this way of balancing between coordinating with other people, but not being overexposed, so we have to develop relationships of trust and forgiveness and belonging, and we have to balance between being individuals and having an individual identity and a group identity. So, that's all central to, uh, meaning. And then, uh, beyond that, uh, we fall prey, uh, in both of those domains to massive self-deception. Um, I don't pay attention to the right things. I misframe you. I'm biased in my attitude towards you. And so, uh, we have to do a lot to correct that. We have to try and ameliorate that. And what that means is we also have to be connected to standards by which we can correct ourselves, standards about what is most real, what is best, what, what's, what is most beautiful, um, and that, that's a deeper kind of connectedness. That's kind of a connectedness to what we consider ultimacy. So, I've tried to show you how all, all of these things are all important dimensions in, uh, why we have to pursue, uh, meaning in life. I've become increasingly dissatisfied with the standard psychological construct called meaning and life to measure and talk about all those di- all those dimensions in a, in a, in a coordinated fashion.