“They haven’t said much about the meaning of life yet.” – Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life
So, is the meaning of life having a super sweet car like this? If so, would having a Bat Cave be like double extra meaning? If so, count me in!
One tragedy of our current culture is lower amounts of social interaction leading to meaning.
So what do I mean by meaning?
Meaning is significance. Meaning is working on something important. Meaning implies actions that change the world for the better, or at least change someone’s life for the better. Ideally, this work is something that you are uniquely suited to do and that you’re good at, but those things aren’t absolutely necessary. The idea is that you have some way that you can actively change the world for the better. And you don’t have to paint the world to make it better, because the world is really big, and it would take a very long time to paint it, kind of like my house exterior, which, at last count, has taken me 10 years to paint, mainly because I haven’t started yet.
But meaning takes time. And it takes persistence. And sometimes it takes money.
Those things can be difficult, especially if you’re lazy like me.
So where can you get meaning?
- Your job. A job is a good and admirable place to find meaning, and ideally yours is such a place. But it probably isn’t. Some people, like those at the IRS, actually have a job that implies they will make others angry with no real discernible benefit to society. How about being a prison guard? Tough duty. And how many jobs are, well, just plain BS? If you have one of those or aspire to one of those, you’re in luck! There’s an entire web page dedicated to generating job titles for you! (LINK) Chances are better than even that your job is just that – a job. It’s a job that people pay you to keep doing rather than a saintly crusade to save the planet. Hey, at least you get paid, right?
- Your family. This is a great place to get meaning. But if you’re a dad like me, your main job is to produce independent and tough children who view the world as a challenge that they want to beat. It’s like you light a bottle rocket and then . . . off it goes. After you’ve done lit the fuse, well, it’s gone. And it doesn’t need you anymore – it has a purpose and a path. I apologize to anyone who really desires to make dependent children who are needy basket cases, but that’s not the way we roll at Casa Wilder. So, by definition, my children need me less each and every day.
What are the alternatives if you don’t get meaning at work, and need more than family can provide?
In the United States we used to take part in civic organizations to do meaningful work, or at least drink and smoke cigarettes, pipes and cigars while we pretended to do meaningful work. Or smoke and talk drunkenly about the meaningful work that we really, really intended to do. But those civic organizations really did accomplish a lot – from scholarships to the foundation of hospitals and clinics to funding zoos and draining swamps to get rid of disease-carrying mosquitoes. And our forefathers accomplished all of that with a hacking cough and a buzz on.
Sadly, one last civic organization I attended spent more effort complaining about other members of the organization that weren’t there than it did changing the world. And they didn’t even drink. I don’t go to meetings anymore, though I did suggest beer would be good at the meetings. If we’re not going to do something to help humanity, at least we should drink, right? I don’t smoke, but I’d be willing to learn, if it helped. Alas, this sober and smoke-free organization does little to change the world.
As a nation, our civic participation is down overall – the book Bowling Alone recounts how membership in groups that meaningfully participate at the local level of communities is . . . down. Rotary. Lions. Boy Scouts. Knights of Columbus.
It even reaches from structured clubs to bowling leagues. Bowling leagues? Well, the author used that data to show that social interaction was down across the board. The overall number of bowlers is up, but the number of participants in bowling leagues is down. We’re bowling, but we’re only bowling with people we already know. We’re not using any sort of social energy to meet other people and forge new friendships and relationships that strengthen the civic core. But at least you can drink and bowl.
If I was a cynic, I’d say the system was designed to do decrease civic participation – if we’re not actively making our community better ourselves, well, we can leave it for government to do. Government likes this a whole lot. Things that used to done by ordinary citizens in the community, say, being on the volunteer fire department, can now be replaced by professional firefighters who get paid. Government wins both ways – the fire department employees like to get paid and vote for the people that pay them, and government has assumed another duty that it must tax for. A win-win!
Unless you’re the guy paying taxes.
Regardless of why civic participation is down, it is down. The reasons might form a future post. And that removes a very significant opportunity to be, well, significant. Thankfully there are other outlets. Me? I write this blog. I know it’s seen by nearly every person on the planet right now. Okay, okay, it’s not. But traffic is heading that way. At current growth trends in the year 2371 everyone on Earth will be doing nothing but reading my blog six hours a day. Which is as it should be. Then I will be officially meaningful.
However, there are other outlets besides writing that are preferred by other people:
Gaming. I think I’ve told this story before on the blog, but keep in mind, when I originally wrote it I was getting about 1/10th the traffic I’m getting now. So, if you’ve heard this story before, pretend you haven’t, because I’m going to tell it even better this time:
In the 1990’s, I remember watching the HBO™ series Dream On. In this series, a newly single guy in New York had numerous adventures. Since it was on HBO®, many of the adventures involved scantily clad females. Or completely naked females. But I turned away from the set and read my Bible during those naughty, naughty scenes. Thank heavens the VCR was recording.
The main character had an office job in New York. He also had a secretary, Toby. She was written as a nearly worthless secretary with an attitude. In one particular episode, she does nothing but play a video game on her work computer. You could do that before the Internet and the IT department tracked every keystroke.
The game involved a supermarket. Toby started the episode as a stock boy in the game. Then she worked her way up to bag boy a few scenes later. Then, cashier. Then a few scenes later? Produce manager.
Finally, at the very end of the episode, she yelled:
“I DID IT!”
“I’m the MANAGER!”
“Of a supermarket . . . that doesn’t exist . . . .”
With each phrase, her emotions changed. At first, joy in achievement! Secondly, a questioning voice . . . a manager. Finally, her voice got very small. She realized her accomplishment was really no accomplishment. It lacked meaning.
If you like games, if you like escaping in them, that’s fine, more power to you. But remember, they’re not really a substitute for actual achievement. Plus, this is Wealthy Wednesday – how much money do you want to spend on games, anyway? And how much time do you want to spend on them? Yeah, I know, I spent two hours today. But . . . umm, I’m sure I had a good reason.
Consumption. Yes, this is Wealthy Wednesday, and as such we finally have to get around to this.
Consumption is used as a replacement for actual significance and achievement. It’s even encouraged. Why does it work?
Where else can you go, hunt for something, find it, and then get it. It’s certain to work, every time. You can’t fail. Yet you get the opportunity to experience the flush of success, the dopamine rush from having found and purchased what you were looking for. And if you bought it off the Internet, you get a second rush when the little brown box from Amazon shows up*.
That purchase gives the same feeling as accomplishing something that has actual meaning, and there’s none of the work and none of the uncertainty. It almost doesn’t matter what the thing is. It could be shoes. It could be books. It could be lightbulbs. It could be PEZ® dispensers. As long as it’s something that you can actually do, your brain can take this stimulus and turn it into a replacement for actual achievement.
And it has been culturally jammed into our heads – we’re not who we are, we are the sum total of what we own. We are our car. We are our house. We are our slacks. We are our PEZ® dispensers. This consumption has replaced civic virtue. It has replaced the Lions Club. It has replaced the Rotary, the Kiwanis, and the Knights of Columbus, but unlike those groups, you can do it alone, at night, downstairs in your underwear, after a few beers. At 2AM, feeling like you haven’t lived up to your potential in life? If you’re tired of being the manager of a supermarket that doesn’t exist, well, perhaps you can check in at Amazon.com® to see what you can buy to fill the achievement and meaning-sized hole in your heart?
This post is about wealth – and the first requirement of being wealthy is that you don’t spend thousands of dollars on useless crap to replace meaning in your life. Especially if you don’t have the cash to spend. If you don’t have the cash to buy that new truck and you buy it anyway? Now you have debt. And the debt removes your peace of mind and you go in search of more meaning, so you buy the boat. And you and your wife have to work for years of your life to pay for it all.
That’s okay, it’s not like you can become a slave to your own consumption based on your search of meaning, is it?
Nah. I’m sure that doesn’t happen.
*I refuse to say how I learned this.
