The difficulties of someone’s early life may be insignificant, or they may be severe. Whatever the case, a spiritual master finds a way to embrace the past. If that means loving an abusive parent, without becoming invested in an unhealthy way, then that is what is needed. We cannot change the past. If we do not wish to be controlled…
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Value for Monday of Week 52 in the season of Harvest and Celebration
Living with Meaning
Meaning cuts to the core. It is about all the things that matter to us.
- Part of the problem with the word disabilities is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can’t feel? or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren’t able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities. [Fred Rogers]
- I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive. [attributed to Joseph Campbell]
- For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment. [Viktor E. Frankl]
- The meaning of life is contained in every single expression of life. It is present in the infinity of forms and phenomena that exist in all of creation. [Michael Jackson]
A conception or vision of the sacred is an anchor and a means of orientation as we navigate through life. In the emotions, that anchor is a sense of meaning.
“What does my life mean, and why does my life matter?” These are the questions at the heart of meaning. We can answer them with other questions:
- Does your life mean anything, or matter, to you?
- Do you matter or mean anything to someone else?
- If you leave anything of value behind – a contribution in art, science or scholarship, a good upbringing for a child, or merely a few pleasant memories – will your life mean anything to others; will it matter?
Most people would answer yes to all these questions. That is what we mean by meaning as an element of the sacred.
Real
True Narratives
- Dan Barry, Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball’s Longest Game (Harper/HarperCollins Publishers, 2011): “Dan Barry finds layers of meaning in baseball’s longest game.”
- Rob Kapilow, Listening for America: Inside the Great American Songbook from Gershwin to Sondheim (Liveright, 2019): “The 16 sophisticated, literate songs (by eight composers as diverse as Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin and Richard Rodgers) that Kapilow has chosen for his text pose a further complication precisely because they are songs. They are seamless, and seemingly spontaneous, chemical combinations of words and music whose elements can only be analyzed together. Lyrics are not meant to be heard in isolation, and music without the words that give it meaning is just pleasing sound; the marriage of the two is everything.”
- Meghan O’Gieblyn, God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning (Doubleday, 2021): “O’Gieblyn’s loosely linked and rigorously thoughtful meditations on technology, humanity and religion mount a convincing and occasionally moving apologia for that ineliminable wrench in the system, the element that not only browses and buys but feels: the embattled, anachronistic and indispensable self.”
Technical and Analytical Readings
- Iddo Landau, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Meaning in Life (Oxford University Press, 2022).
- Joshua A. Hicks & Clay Routledge, eds., The Experience of Meaning in Life: Classical Perspectives, Emerging Themes, and Controversies (Springer, 2013).
- E.D. Klemke & Steven M. Cahn, The Meaning of Life: A Reader (Oxford University Press, 4th edition, 2017).
- Susan Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters (Princeton University Press, 2010).
- Thaddeus Metz, Meaning in Life (Oxford University Press, 2013).
- Michael Polanyi & Harry Prosch, Meaning (University of Chicago Press, 1975).
- Jan Zwicky, The Experience of Meaning (McGill-Queens University Press, 2019).
- Michael Ruse, A Meaning to Life (Oxford University Press, 2019).
- Rui Diogo, Meaning of Life, Human Nature, and Delusions: How Tales about Love, Sex, Races, Gods and Progress Affect Our Lives and Earth's Splendor (Springer, 2022).
- Tom Stonier, Information and Meaning: An Evolutionary Perspective (Springer, 1997).
- Joel Vos, Meaning in Life: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Practitioners (Palgrave, 2018).
- John Cottingham, On the Meaning of Life: Thinking in Action (Routledge, 2002).
- Clara E. Hill, Meaning in Life: A Therapist’s Guide (American Psychological Association, 2018).
- Tatjana Schnell, The Psychology of Meaning in Life (Routledge, 2021).
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. [Herman Melville, Moby Dick, or the Whale (1851), Chapter 7. The Chapel.]
Novels:
- Tom McCarthy, C: A Novel (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010).
- John Casey, Compass Rose: A Novel (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010).
- Stephen King, 11/22/63: A Novel (Scribner, 2011). What events and relationships shape and give meaning to our lives? In 11/22/63, Stephen King juxtaposes personal meaning with meaning in a social context. With its dual focus on the Kennedy assassination and the protagonist's romantic love, it is "a meditation on memory, love, loss, free will and necessity", key elements of meaning.
- László Krasznahorkai, The World Goes On (New Directions, 2018): “A playful irony undercuts the incessant anguish in each story.”
- Michael Frayn, Skios: A Novel (Henry Holt & Company, 2012): “Farce is the essence, the perfect distillation, of the misery and futility of everyday life.”
- Sheila Heti, How Should a Person Be? A Novel from Life (St. Martin’s Press, 2012): “I do not think this novel knows everything, but Sheila Heti does know something about how many of us, right now, experience the world, and she has gotten that knowledge down on paper, in a form unlike any other novel I can think of.”
- Aimee Bender, The Butterfly Lampshade: A Novel (Doubleday, 2020), is a surrealist novel about objects taking on meaning. “. . . its particular quality of stillness hums with so much mystery and intensity that the book never feels static. It is a measure of the book’s success that as I reached the conclusion, I felt considerably more altered by the experience than I often am by novels that travel much further from their beginnings.”
- Kawai Strong Washburn, Sharks in the Time of Saviors: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020): “There once was a time when places had no names. A time when no separation existed between our forebears and the trees and rivers and mountains that surrounded them. Those first humans to walk the earth felt the presence of things unseen, heard the whispers of spirits and feared nothing, for they knew life and death were intertwined and the dead were a part of them — their past, present and future.”
From the dark side:
- Percival Everett, Dr. No: A Novel (Graywolf Press, 2022): “Everett’s version of the title character is a distinguished professor of mathematics at Brown University who studies nothing, meaning that he contemplates and researches the topic of nothingness. His name is Wala Kitu, but he has a doctorate and specializes in naught, so: Call him Dr. No, if you please. A self-made billionaire named John Sill hires Professor Kitu to aid in his quixotic ambition to turn himself into a Bond villain. ‘You know, evil for evil’s sake,’ the billionaire explains in a coffee shop shortly before sliding a $3 million check across the table.”
Poetry
Meaning
- Stephen Crane, “A Man Saw a Ball of Gold in the Sky”
- Walt Whitman, “A child said, What is the grass?”
- William Wordsworth, “We are Seven” (analysis)
Books of poems:
- Paul Tran, All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Press, 2022), “is . . . full of writing about writing, about poetry as meaning-making, making as meaning.”
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 (1844) (approx. 24-27’), with its passionate and expressive intensity throughout, captures the essence of meaning. This is especially compelling in the poignant second movement. “Audiences love Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor for its warmth and frequent pyrotechnics.” Top recorded performances are by Kreisler (Blech) in 1926, Kreisler (Ronald) in 1935, Milstein (Walter) in 1945, Menuhin (Furtwängler) in 1952, Heifetz (Munch) in 1959, Chung (Previn) in 1971, Stern (Ozawa) in 1981, Kennedy (Tate) in 1988, Bell (Norrington) in 2002, Ehnes (Ashkenazy) in 2010, Kavakos & Camerata Salzburg in 2009, Chen (Harding) in 2012, Perlman (Haitink), and Hahn in a live performance.
Marjan Vahdat is an Iranian singer, whose works drips with longing. “Marjan lives in exile in the USA, and there is little doubt that in several of her songs she expresses her deep longing for her native country, which has so many cultural treasures of poetry, music, pictures and textiles to offer, in addition to unique cultural landscapes and stories from a deep and rich cultural tradition.” Marjan’s singing lives at the intersection of desire and meaning. Her albums include:
- “Our Garden is Alone” (2022) (58’): “The songs are mostly about longing, and while they might appear to be love poetry, on some of the songs the listener can decide whether the longing is for a lover or the country of Iran . . .”
- “Serene Hope” (2017) (48’): “Marjan is prevented from performing on stages in her homeland, because since the revolution in 1979 it has been forbidden for female singers to perform for men in Iran. This has forced both Marjan and her sister Mahsa to make their career internationally.”
- “Blue Fields” (2013) (59’): “The album's title comes from the lyric, 'Bring your black and white sheep and let them sleep in the blue fields of my home.'”
Meaning goes to the emotional core. Here are works that do that in one way, another way, or a few ways:
- Franz Clement, Violin Concerto in D major (1805) (approx. 41’)
- Gabriel Fauré, Piano Quintet No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 89 (1894) (approx. 29-31’): passionate and tender, this quintet’s predominant overtone is melancholy, perhaps reflecting the composer’s sadness over his father’s death.
- Camille Saint-Saëns, Violin Concerto No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 61 (1880) (approx. 28-31’). As the composer put it: “The artist who does not feel completely satisfied by elegant lines, by harmonious colors, and by a beautiful succession of chords does not understand the art of music.”
- Henryk Wieniawski, Violin Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 14 (1852) (approx. 23-29’): “. . . this concerto features a grand, theatrical air with plenty of pathos and poetry, and magnificent multiple-stopping for the solo instrument.”
- Giya Kancheli, Amao Omi (Senseless War) (approx. 23-29’): Is this meaning, or meaninglessness?
- Alfred Hill, String Quartet No. 17 in C Major (1938) (approx. 18’)
- Sergei Prokofiev, The Gambler (1917) (approx. 126’), based on Dostoevsky’s story: the gambler wins the money but loses love. Was it worth it? Here are performances conducted by Gergiev, Rozhdestvensky and Lazarev.
- Gustav Bengtsson, Cello Concerto in A Minor (1932) (approx. 23’)
- Leonard Bernstein, piano pieces: Four Anniversaries (1948) (approx. 7’); Five Anniversaries (1949-51) (approx. 8’); Seven Anniversaries (1943) (approx. 10’); Thirteen Anniversaries (1988) (approx. 21’)
- Robert Ward, Violin Concerto (approx. 21’)
- Roland Wiltgen, Orbital Resonances (approx. 12’): on the orbital relationships of heavenly bodies. The symbolism ties into human relationships.
- York Bowen, Viola Sonata No. 1 in C minor, Op. 18 (1905) (approx. 27’): “While some listeners at the time might have looked to Brahms’s then new sonatas for the composer’s model, in 1905 Bowen’s music must have struck many people as a fresh breeze blowing through the British music of the time.”
Harbottle and Jonas, play and sing heartfelt tunes, especially on their most recent albums.
- “Saving the Good Stuff, Volume 1” (2023) (32’): “There’s a lot to be said for working on music that you really love . . .”
- “The Beacon” (2021) (42’) “is a collection of songs inspired by the difficult circumstances we all faced during the global pandemic of 2020. It is an album of hope, new beginnings and re-rooting to the ancient ways.”
- “The Sea Is My Brother” (2019) (42’): “Whilst doing the musical rounds of England we've often heard stories told, songs sung or found memorials and monuments commemorating or celebrating particular people and events that have taken place around the coast of England. For this album, we separately found ourselves writing songs about these people and stories that have shaped, or been shaped, by English maritime and both felt this should be the sole focus of the album.”
- “Anna Is a Dancer” (2017) (26’): “A banjo here and a mandolin there, exquisite harmonies befitting of CSN , a sense of whimsical longing communicated through mournful chord changes . . .”
- “We Shall Overcome” (2016) (30’)
Padang Food Tigers is an ambient duo of guitar and drones, which pieces together sonic fragments, producing a feeling of floating on an experiential cloud. Their albums include:
- “God’s Plenty” (2021) (31’)
- “A Cassowary Apart” (2021) (36’)
- “Ready Country Nimbus” (2011) (31’)
Jason Isbell is a popular/country/folk singer whose vocal work drips with meaning. Here are links to his releases, and to live performances: Live at House of Blues, Live on My Green FM Music Festival, and Live at Brooklyn Bowl, Nashville.
Kris Drever is a Scottish folk singer and guitarist whose music speaks of life. He presents “a highly individual blend of rhythm and harmony, folk, jazz, rock and country inflections . . .” With Drever, we return to the beginning – human worth – informed by a lifetime of experience. He has a significant set of playlists, so far.
Albums:
- Paul Simon, “So Beautiful or So What” (2011) (38’) is an album-length reflection on life and meaning: “. . . Simon manages to grapple with mortality, spirituality and even banality, finding an answer to the ineffable in song.”
- “Steve Haines and the Third Floor Orchestra” (2019) (58’): “These arrangements celebrate the original melodic and lyrical structures of the pieces with explorations in harmony and instrumentation which aim to augment the power of these classic songs.”
- Benjamin Boone and Philip Levine, “The Poetry of Jazz” (2018) (68’): “Benjamin Boone knows how to get inside the poem, Phil Levine's inscrutable and imploding loops of poetics, his observations of the seen and unseen. Boone knows where the thing called poetry lives, an ocelot among the waters, a sky-shaped Rain God that flares down upon us.”
- Benjamin Boone and Philip Levine, “The Poetry of Jazz, Volume Two” (2019) (72’)
- Joseph Tawadros, “The Bluebird, the Mystic and the Fool” (2018) (77’): “The album title is about the different emotional facets of being human – such as wisdom, silliness, sadness, joy and triumph.”
- William Goldstein and Maksim Velichkin, “Intensity” (2017) (57’)
- Karine Polwart & Dave Milligan, “Still as Your Sleeping” (2021) (44’): poignant songs that cut to the core of life’s meaning. Polwart says of it: “People say goodbye to what they know, to loved ones, and perhaps even to life, whilst others are pulled back to the world of the living. There’s a deep sense of time too, both of those who went before us, and those who’re still to come”.
- Esbjörn Svensson, “Home.s.” (2022) (36’): Svensson’s widow found these haunting solo piano recordings after her husband died tragically. She described the discovery as “getting a message smuggled over the border.”
- Brigid Mae Power, “Dream from the Deep Well” (2023) (48’): “Filled with personal tales of offspring and grandparents, the lovelorn and the lost, it’s the essence of re-imagined folk music. Modern folk for modern folk, Brigid’s evocative vocals alongside strings, steel guitar, horns and mellotron adds to the baroque loveliness whilst waving back at her rootsy past, daubing new colours on a much-loved canvas.”
- Chris Smither, “All About the Bones” (2024) (34’) “is as elemental as the inky black shadows cast by a shockingly bright moon.”
- Alice Zawadzki, Fred Thomas & Misha Mullov-Abbado, “Za Górami” (2024) (54’): “Jazz is all about moving forward and finding new ways to make music that touches hearts and minds.” “This collection of poetic folk song material showcases the London-born Zawadzki's excellent grasp of French, Polish, English, Latino-Spanish and Jewish Ladino in song, the latter making up half the repertoire. Her phrasing is sophisticated yet instinctive and she injects drama, playfulness and tenderness into the songs with an acute awareness of meaning as well as the sound and silence around her.”
- Hannah Sanders & Ben Savage, “In the Dark We Grow” (2024) (43’) “explores themes of nature, love, and family. Interwoven with veins of melancholy, this album nevertheless sparkles with joy and exudes the sense of companionship that was rekindled for the duo by their Fairport Convention tour, where they spent weeks on the road with their fellow musicians.”
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Paul Simon, “Dazzling Blue” (lyrics)
- Paul Simon, “Questions for the Angels” (lyrics)
- Luciano Berio, “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” (lyrics)
- Samuel Barber, Canzonetta for Oboe & Strings, Op. 48
Visual Arts
- René Magritte, The Son of Man (1964)
- René Magritte, Man Reading a Newspaper (1928)
- Giorgio de Chirico, The Enigma of the Arrival and the Afternoon (1912)
Film and Stage
- Our Town, about life and death {see the video} in a small New England town
- Citizen Kane, about the life of a man who separated himself from his spiritual roots
- Night On Earth: a series of five vignettes from across the world, spanning one night. Tom Waits’ haunting, gravelly voice and quirky arrangements provide a strangely compelling backdrop to the wide emotional range of this film.
- Life is Beautiful: a film in two parts, comic and tragic, about a devoted father and loving husband imprisoned in a Nazi war camp with his young son, and how he strives to maintain a sense of meaning for himself, his son and his wife, who is in the same prison camp but segregated from her husband and son.
- The Straight Story, about a 73-year-old man’s journey on a riding lawn mower to see his 79-year-old brother, and the people along the way who help him: the slow journey across space is also an elderly man’s journey over a lifetime.
- A Walk in the Sun: a dramatic account of the inner lives and aspirations of soldiers facing a perilous mission
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: “this is a film about meaning?” you might ask incredulously. This early animated feature film is not so much about the title character as it is about everyone and everything in her world. So it is a film about what matters, and therefore a film about meaning. The film softens the cruelty in the Grimm fairy tale considerably, yet in drawing a distinction between true-to-life characters and caricatures, Disney also set indulged his audience its inclination to treat “secondary” characters as objects.
- The Wild Bunch: an evolutionary step in the cinematic portrayal of violence, this film gets at meaning from the underside.
- Twenty-Four Eyes: a moving but maudlin and improbable story about a young teacher in Japan, who forms a peculiarly close bond with her six-year-old pupils; over the next twenty years, she follows them through their joys and sorrows – mainly sorrows – including World War II. As one critic puts it, “twenty-four eyes make for too much weeping.”
- My Night at Maud’s: the characters wrestle with their choices.
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