Posted by An important aspect of purpose is that purpose is always based in a bigger story. Purpose isn’t found in a story we make up for ourselves or a fairly tale we try to live with ourselves at the centre. Last time I wrote about Socrates, now it’s time for a little Plato. Plato says we can’t just make up our own stories about the world and live by them as if they were true because if we do, the purpose we come up with might turn out to be no purpose at all, or even harmful to ourselves and others. History is full of examples of people who have come up with purposes, based on false views of reality which ended up with nothing at all to celebrate and plenty to regret. A life of real purpose means finding a bigger story, a story which adds to the things worth living for within the world as it really is.
Plato talks about men who live in a cave. The cave is all they’ve ever known. Sometimes they see shadows of strange objects and moving lights which come from the outside the cave, and they ascribe a certain meaning to these shadows and strange objects as they appear to them in the cave. Should these men ever have someone come from the outside, to tell them these are shadows of other people and there is a bigger world beyond the cave, the chances are they’ll reject it. They might look towards the light of the sun which was making the shadows, and be dazzled, so prefer to turn their heads back to the cave where they don’t have the discomfort of reality’s glare and take consolation in stuff they’ve defined for themselves and which gives their lives purpose in their own opinion.
Where do you think the world came from? Where is it going? True purpose, and lives of enduring significance exist only in reality and not in a cave of our own definition. This is tough because the busyness of life makes it hard to see beyond what’s six inches from our nose. The tyranny of the urgent, the relentless inbox, the crises we don’t see coming all knock us off kilter. So we revert to our own story like the men in the cave. We try to be our own sources of meaning and purpose – and go along with a culture which says look inside your heart, look inside yourself and you’ll find your purpose there. Or if that doesn’t work – pick something off society’s menu – attach yourself to some “good cause” – volunteer somewhere, become an activist for this or that and you’ll find a purpose there.
But all the evidence would suggest this isn’t working. We are not sources of meaning in and of ourselves. We need a bigger story. According to the Office for National Statistics, barely even a THIRD of adults working in the UK believe their work is even “slightly worthwhile.” The state of mental health among our young people continues to decline with rates of depression and anxiety increasing by something like 70% in the past 25 years. The reason it doesn’t work is that when we think meaning comes from ourselves and then fail to hit what we thought was ultimate, we’re destined to despair. Or if we do hit it, and the only meaning of the thing was what we ourselves ascribed we soon discover how hollow that is. Purpose needs to come outside, from a bigger story. So what are you doing to track the true things down?
Living Telos 