Meaning in Life - Being and Becoming Community Newsletter

What’s the key to a meaningful life? The sheer variety of responses elicited by this question could supply material for a hundred future cafés. Here are a few you’ve likely encountered (and some concerns you might have): Happiness. (But can’t lives full of adversity and hardship be meaningful — and for that reason?) Personal relationships — family, friends, lovers, and so on. (But can’t quiet, solitary lives be meaningful too?) Morality — doing good, cultivating virtue, bending the long arc of history toward justice. (But what about great achievers who were not-so-great people?) Serving God. (But what about atheists?) Authenticity — being true to yourself, following your passion, and behaving in accordance with the values you hold dear. (But what if my “true” self is deeply immoral?) Or maybe, as the philosopher Susan Wolf argues, “meaning arises from loving objects worthy of love and engaging with them in a positive way.” As she writes in Meaning in Life and Why It Matters: When I vis

What’s the key to a meaningful life? The sheer variety of responses elicited by this question could supply material for a hundred future cafés. Here are a few you’ve likely encountered (and some concerns you might have): Happiness. (But can’t lives full of adversity and hardship be meaningful — and for that reason?) Personal relationships — family, friends, lovers, and so on. (But can’t quiet, solitary lives be meaningful too?) Morality — doing good, cultivating virtue, bending the long arc of history toward justice. (But what about great achievers who were not-so-great people?) Serving God. (