MODELING MEANING AND ITS DIMENSIONS

I mentioned in the last Meta Reflection that recently re-read Viktor Frankl’s book, The Unheard Cry for Meaning on Logotherapy. In that work Frankl writes that as the struggle for survival subsides as we learn skills for surviving and surviving well, and as the standard of living goes up all around the world, the question emerges, “Survival for what?”

“Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.” (p. 21) “Consider today’s society; it gratifies and satisfies virtually every need—except for one, the need for meaning!”

One way that we use the term “meaning” is in terms of meaningfulness. Is life itself meaningful? Is your life meaningful? Frankl writes about the existential emptiness and vacuum in so many people— a vacuum that they try to fill us by making something “the meaning of life” at a lower level in the hierarchy of needs (Maslow), a level that cannot operate as “the meaning of life.” Then commenting that “Man does not live by welfare alone,” Frankl explores some of the substitutes for ultimate meaning, that is, the meaning of life: conformity, authority, traditions. He could have listed many other things that we see people substituting for true meaningfulness: drugs, fashion, sex, money, consumption, fame, popularity, etc.

What are you living for? Where do you search for the meaning of life? What is the focus of your search, the heart and soul of what you are living for? Frankl writes: “If we are to bring out the human potential at its best, we must first believe in its existence and presence.” (p. 30)

Do you? Do you believe in human potential at its best? Frankl, coming out of the time when Psychoanalysis and Behaviorism dominated in the field of psychology (in fact, he started out as a Psychoanalyst and valued the contributions of both disciplines) argued that both missed meaning and human potential and not only missed it, but both also had a tendency to defend against such. With Psychoanalysis, he said they view the highest and best in humans, the authentic and genuine, as “defense mechanisms”—denials, justifications, explanations. And with Behaviorism, he said they view the same as merely “conditioned responses.” Neither saw or believed in human potential at its best.

So against that Frankl wrote that believing in human potential and the highest possibilities was an important first step.

Once we believe in that possibility, the next step is the task of unleashing those possibilities in human nature. So how are we to do that? For that Frankl primarily talked about answering in and with one’s life the questions that Life asks of us. He says that life questions each of us. We are questioned by circumstances, events, people, and situations. We are questioned about our heart, our understanding, our character. We are questioned about our gifts—what are we equipped to do? We are questioned about our relationships—who do we encounter and how do we respond in that encounter? We are also questioned by unchangeable events—how will we respond? How will we change ourselves, our attitudes, our heart so that we are changed by the experience?

It is in these ways that we begin to detach from ourselves and to transcend ourselves and to live for something bigger and other than ourselves. And for Frankl this was the path for a meaningful and happy life. Quoting Albert Einstein, he included this: "The man who regards his life as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life." (p. 34)

In addition to this first use of the word “meaning,” we can use it in another very different sense. I’ve been using the word meaning as purpose and reason and have been talking about “the meaning of life,” about meaningfulness, and about living for a purpose. A second use of the word meaning is in the sense of a construct, as cognition, and as understanding. “What do you mean by that word?” “What does X mean to you?”

Maslow recognized the first usage of meaning and so put meaning in the Being-dimension of self-actualization, but he did not recognize the second usage of meaning. It is that second usage that I’ve put inside the Hierarchy of Needs which is the key factor that conditions our impulses, drives, and needs. We experience those biological impulses as filtered and conditioned by our meanings, that is, by our beliefs, understandings, memories (history), permissions and taboos, etc.

With these two dimensions of meaning, we can now understand that Maslow used meaning in the first sense but not in the second. That’s why, in Neuro-Semantics, as we use meaning in both of these ways we are now able to take the Hierarchy of Needs to the next level of development. And that enables us to integrate it with the Self-Actualization Quadrants which allows us to effectively unleash human possibilities.