Fundamentally, Life is a Purposeless Drift

Finding Your Way

This quote comes from a book I mentioned some weeks ago, called Language, Structure and Change, Actually, the authors are quoting Humberto Maturana, a biologist who describes human functioning from a language perspective. It was he who also coined the idea of ""objectivity" in quotes."

Also, in keeping with today's theme, I meant to mention in last week’s issue that I’d read an extremely interesting article in Salon e-Zine – by existentialist psychotherapist Robert Firestone. He argues, as I have for most of my career, that the greatest error in relationship-building comes from the idea that your partner can "make you whole," or will "make you happy."

Back to the "purposeless drift" quote. This quote is part of an existentialist philosophy. Now, I gotta admit that, back in the late 60's and early 70's, when I was working on my BA., and later, as I did my divinity degree, I didn’t "get" existentialism. Life, to me, seemed almost to require both purpose and meaning. And existentialism denies both.

I began my counselling degree in 1981, and in 1982 had to do a year long theology course, which linked theology with therapy. The theologian we studied was Paul Tillich, who was, for all intents and purposes, a Christian existentialist. I became fascinated with his work at combining these seemingly irreconcilable positions.

One of his books, for example, is called The Courage to Be, A one line synopsis might be, "the courage to be fully human in the face of non-being." Which leads me back, in a loop, to the Salon article.

A client, last week, said, "I just realized that, for all of my life, I’ve been looking for someone to fill up this black hole I feel inside. I now know that no one can do that for me." I hastened to add that she couldn’t do it for herself, either. The black hole is real, always present, and its feeling is anxiety. Its source is our fear of non-being – our fear of death.

Firestone indicates, in his response to questions about marriage – and especially about the stunning failure of marriage – that we need to get over some stuff. We need to understand that all of us are anxious, all of us feel the black hole, and most of us have been conditioned to either deny the feeling or blame it on external circumstances. Many of us have forged relationships for exactly the reason he states – to have someone else enter our lives and make it all better.

Now, of course, the flaw in this logic is that no one, including ourselves, can make this part better. There is no certainty to life, beyond the final one – death. (As the authors of Language, Structure and Change, put it,

"Life, as a purposeless drift, is a series of accommodations an organism makes as it moves through a medium. By definition, every accommodation is successful, except the last." pg. 47)

So, we can sit down and feel sorry for ourselves, or we can get up and live life. Right now.

I’ve been spending a lot of time, with clients, encouraging them to go out and have a conversation with someone they find interesting. I tell them that this little prescription is not so that the other person can complete them, but rather so that they make contact, as I said last week, eye to eye and knee to knee, with others. I ask them to go and listen to someone else; to find out what makes another person tick. They don’t have to buy into what the other person is saying, or change in any way. I want them to learn to reach out, to listen and to share.

Why? Because life is a purposeless drift – but not a meaningless one.

Purpose implies following a "path of purpose" imposed from the outside. Meaning describes the explanation I give to something. Meaning is personal.

Now, I suppose it is possible to give meaning to your life and never share it with anyone. I suppose, as some clients have said, that it is possible to hold your own council and figure yourself out, in isolation. I’ve never seen anyone pull it off, but I suppose it is possible.

On the other hand, in counselling, the richest experiences I have had have involved being with couples, many years married, who finally talk to each other from their depths, intimately, softly, with care and compassion. And almost universally, one or the other will look at the other with wonder and exclaim, "Oh my God, you mean you’re scared too? I thought it was just me!"

Meaning becomes meaning-full in dialogue. As I dialogue with, say, Dar, I know that she has listened to "me do me" since 1984. When I come up with some new version of me, which may be so overwhelmingly interesting to me that I just swallow it whole, Dar can offer the perspective of long association, and ask me to come off of my cloud and test what I’m saying. And I can do the same for her.

As I’ve written in my booklets (and this is the theme of the 3rd booklet,) relationship, for me, is NOT about Dar making me whole. It’s not about finding someone to complete me. Relationship, for me, is a place where I feel free to share who I am. My goal is to learn about me, accept, joyfully, my being in the face of my non-being, and to share myself with at least one other person, deeply and intimately. And then to sit back and watch and listen to Dar doing the same with me.

We know that the world is a scarier, weirder place than it was even 10 or 20 years ago. As a people, we are decidedly on the wrong path – a path that measures value in what we accumulate, as opposed to measuring value in the depth of our wisdom and understanding.

And yet.

At any point, we can change our meaning. There are infinite ways of viewing and understanding things. Any time we pick one that involves blaming others, or expecting others to save us, we regress. Any time we pick one that allows us to face our fears with courage – Tillich’s The Courage to Be, – we create an new meaning.

In the depth of our darkness we reach out and enter into a dialogue. And in that reaching out and making contact – in the touch – there is light.