SYNOPSIS:

    When we seek to make our own lives "meaningful",
we may be struggling with two different sorts of meaninglessness.
We can create many forms of relative meanings
within the assumed areas of meaningful life:
money, achievement, love, marriage, children, enjoyment, & religion.
But even when we have fulfilled such meanings,
we may still feel an ultimate hollowness,
a spiritual or existential meaninglessness.
This deeper meaninglessness cannot be cured
by any of the relative meanings
we are able to create or achieve by our own efforts.
Ultimate meaning comes only as a gift
—independent of whatever relative meanings we achieve.

The following 5-fold distinction underlies this cyber-sermon:

Relative Meaninglessness          Existential Meaninglessness

1. Disappointed expectations;              1. Frameworks of meaning collapse;
failure to fulfill accepted criteria.         lack of ultimate purpose in life.

2. Discrepancy between established     2. Uncaused; discovered as a
criteria and observable actualities;      fundamental condition-of-being;
based on intellectual information.       existentially disclosed.

3. Temporary—lasts only until              3. Permanent—no matter what we
the discrepancy is corrected.               change, meaninglessness continues.

4. Limited to a specific                         4. Pervades every dimension of life.
realm of meaning.

5. We know what to change                5. Nothing we can do will
to bring meaning.                               make life ultimately meaningful.

OUTLINE:

I. MY EARLY QUEST FOR MEANING 

II. NO HELP FROM ACADEMIC PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY 

III. RELATIVE MEANINGLESSNESS & EXISTENTIAL MEANINGLESSNESS 

IV. THE COLLAPSE OF 'MEANINGS' AND ILLUSIONS 

V. BEYOND EXISTENTIAL MEANINGLESSNESS

AUTHOR:

    James Park is an existential philosopher.
He does not have most of the relative fulfillments of life.
But he finds that his life is ultimately meaningful,
as explained in this cyber-sermon.

    You will learn much more about him on his home page:
An Existential Philosopher's Museum ,
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/

    This cyber-sermon is based on a small book called
Opening to Grace:
Transcending our Spiritual Malaise
Chapter 4: "Relative Meaninglessness & Spiritual Meaninglessness"
The complete table of contents of Opening to Grace
appears in the Existential Spirituality Bibliography,
where it is listed as the last book:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/B-XSP.html

    A draft of this proposed cyber-sermon is already available:
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/CY-MEAN.html

The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author.
The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of Minnesota.