Whenever something happens in our lives, we try to understand what has taken place, asking ourselves and sometimes others why and how, seeking answers for the reason and causes behind the experience we endured. Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist, neurologist, and Nazi Holocaust survivor, argued that the primary motivation for human beings in life is the search for meaning. Finding purpose in life is what can help a human being overcome the suffering and pain caused by traumatic events or experiences. This search for meaning in life can be found through creative works, beauty, and love in everyday life, and by maintaining a positive attitude toward inevitable suffering. However, what if the causes or facts that caused that pain are not entirely clear, unconscious, or have even been hidden by concealing and denying the truth? Would the meaning of what happened, or of the experience, be the same? Or could the truth free us or even worsen the conditions of the meaning we gave to that experience, especially if it was painful and caused or continues to cause us suffering?
From this perspective, we can examine the work of artists who have revealed their unbearable pain to the world through their marvellous musical, poetic, and cinematic creations. If we refer to painting, how could we not take as an example the work and life of Van Gogh, the author of countless unpublished paintings, drawings, and sketches, whose fame was only recognised after his suicide (as is often the case with many outsiders throughout history). Artistic works, therefore, represent a channelling of personal pain and suffering into a different form of reality made possible by the skill and sensitivity of the artists themselves, a transformative process from which a new truth emerges, a personal vision of the world, and therefore of existence. This reworking of pain into an artistic creation allows the experience that caused or is presumed to have caused that pain, as well as the idea we have of the lived and now past experience, to be interpreted differently, or at least transmuted and imprinted into something sensorial. This process also occurs in Jungian psychotherapy, for example, where suffering can be used to cross a threshold into reality, aided by symbolism, dream analysis, and confrontation with one’s unconscious. The ultimate goal is to bring out all those hidden and painful parts, integrating them into a new personal reality, a new meaning.
Therefore, if the actual event is what determines the experience, meaning is the bridge that connects these two worlds. But now, returning to the initial question: what would happen if the facts we know aren’t actually true, or not entirely true? How would this change the meaning we give, or have already given, to our experience? Obviously, this depends on what kind of new narrative is revealed to us, or what we reveal ourselves to ourselves, whether positive or negative. Suppose someone left us without an explanation, and this caused us pain. We might react in many different ways, from blaming ourselves without pain, to blaming ourselves but suffering anyway, or in the worst case, offering ourselves the most disparate and incoherent explanations if our pain surpasses our rationality and reasoning. In this sense, we could say that a new version of reality through the discovery of a new truth, could bring us relief if the reasons for the abandonment were justified, or it could worsen the situation if we discover even more serious darker reasons.
Thinking widely, this recalls the process of scientific discovery. Copernicus with his “Sun is at the centre of the universe, and the earth turns around it”, not only revealed a new truth, but actually led to a paradigm shift, a completely new version of reality at that time. What was before has been cancelled and substituted with a completely new vision of the universe that projected all humanity towards a new meaning of existence, opening new possibilities. Thus, building a new bridge of meaning may lead to new positive possibilities that otherwise, we wouldn’t have seen till that moment, projecting ourselves to better lives. So far so good, but what would happen if the discovery, worsens the previous reality we were living? Would it be better to know the truth or not? Indeed, this opens a huge discussion seeing that the involvements of different scales and contexts surely require a certain degree of diversity for the approaches, meaning that a single person’s case would need the expertise of a therapist while a social or political-based problem may involve the necessity to investigate widely, involving various aspects.
The Katyn Massacre (1940), one example among many, was the murder of approximately 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals by the Soviet NKVD. The USSR falsely accused the Nazis and hid the truth for decades. Only in 1990 did it officially admit its responsibility. This revelation shed light on Soviet oppression and, by rekindling an old and deep pain, exacerbated Russian-Polish relations. In this case, the search for meaning could be seen as a manifestation of the former Communist bloc countries’ desire to strengthen movements for truth and political transparency. Similarly, an act of abandonment disguised as silence, but revealed after years to be an act of adultery, could plunge us back into a spiral of pain that, having likely already overcome it, we will find ourselves having to search for new meaning.
In any case, as in the myth of Sisyphus condemned to carry a heavy rock up a steep hill, it seems that human beings are “obliged” to a constant search for meaning, whatever the underlying reasons behind this experience, which has induced pain and suffering. However, this point of view is very close to Western culture, as the quote is part of Greek mythology. Religions, philosophy, science, myths, politics—many aspects shape our way of seeing things. Indeed, different ways of viewing meaning and its implications depend on what has emerged as a complex interconnection between different aspects and contexts of personal and social life. Eastern philosophy, such as Chunfucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Daoism, generally see the journey toward meaning as a path inward. Using practical tools and methods like detachment, the act of letting go, “going with the flow,” aims to liberate human beings from suffering by bringing up meaning, joy, and fulfillment. This setting might relive oneself from seeking external and self-explanatory meaning. The inward path of self-discovery rather then external achievements for easterners might better suit the fulfillment of life’s meaning by focusing on the spiritual life of humans. In any case, the journey towards meaning whether it is inward or external, it carries a constant and not so pleasant work to do, like a in ecosystems where a dynamic equilibrium is a state of continuous, balanced change where components like populations and environmental factors interact to maintain stability and resilience over time, human life’s meaning has to be probably found in every moment. What path would you choose?
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