Meaning: Section 1--Not Finding Meaning
Not Finding the Meaning
At
the center of the painting, a man is kneeling next to the lips of a statue of a
sphinx. The man is wearing a cloth robe that covers most of his body except the
left side of his chest and his left arm. He leans with his ears toward the
sphinx, as if listening to it whisper. But the sphinx’s lips are sealed.
The
attentiveness in the man’s posture tells that the sphinx was anything but
generous with wisdom.
The
man is standing on sand that extends, along with old ruins, into the distance.
Only the head of the sphinx can be seen; the body is buried in the sand, as are
the pillars and ruins. Next to the man is a stick he probably used to help him
trudge through the sand so he could question the sphinx. In the right corner
are a skull and a rectangular structure that looks like a tomb.
It
was December of 2016, two weeks after I was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer.
I was in Boston, seeking a second opinion from Harvard and wandering through
the Museum of Fine Art looking for meaning. I was staring at the painting of
the Questioner of the Sphinx (by Elihu Vedder, 1836–1923).
Although
my medical questions had all been answered, I left the city, like the
questioner of the sphinx, with only more existential questions. The most urgent question I had was about the meaning of
my life, especially now that it appeared to have been shortened.
How
do other people find meaning?
I
know the question is problematic, but it is relevant. Problematic because we
may not have two people agreeing on the meaning of the word “meaning”; and
relevant because we use the reference to meaning every day as if it is
essential to our existence.
When
I asked the thirty-nine participants in my study about meaning, they referred
to something. The words meant something to them.
They
had answers. Even those who said
they didn’t have any answers had answers.
I
struggled with the question, and I knew I was not alone in my struggle.
Donna,
a thirty-seven-year-old woman, framed the
issue in her way. She understood the meaning in the sense of purpose, and
cancer made her rethink purpose on an individual level, as a person. Donna had lost what she once thought
was her purpose in life. “How to find meaning? Hmm. That’s a tough one,” Donna
remarked. “Cancer has forced me to focus and reflect on what’s my purpose in
life.”
Donna
had a sense of what having a purpose had been like. “I have a 9-year-old niece, and I had always thought that
my purpose in life was to have a child of my own.” But when Donna was diagnosed with cancer, that purpose was no
longer attainable. “So, it’s as if my purpose in life was ripped away from me,”
she said.
She
has to be on the anticancer medication the rest of her life, and with that, she
cannot biologically have a child of her own because the medicine would cause
congenital abnormalities in her offspring. Therefore, even if she were to live
another twenty years, it would not change the fact that she would not have biological
children of her own. So now Donna is
trying to find a purpose somewhere else, but she does not yet know what that is.
Stories
of finding meaning in the illness are known to survivors. But unless the person
experiences the epiphany themselves, all those stories are just words.
There
was Nancy, a thirty-six-year-old woman,
for instance. She rejected the notion that she found meaning anywhere in her
experience with cancer. “I don’t think I have found meaning; I don’t think I
have,” she responded. “I think if
anything, this just reinforced to me the idea that life is just chaos and that
there is no purpose to things.”
Nancy
perceived that she’d had a significant derailing of her life path. Although many people came to console her
by bringing their reasonings or understandings of the world, she could not find condolences in their words. Nancy heard people say, “Just let go,”
and “Everything happens for a reason.” But these did not fit with how she saw things.
You
know, no! No! There are horrible, horrible things that happen in this world,
absolutely atrocious, way worse than what has happened to me. And they didn’t
happen for a reason.
Nancy
could not relate to an understanding that finds a reason for everything
that happens. She could not let go
of calling things what they are. Things
can be ugly, and that sucks. Life
sucks at times and for no reason. So Nancy
could not find meaning. “I don’t
think I found it—I haven’t found any
meaning in it. If anything, it’s that life is very fleeting.”
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