Resolving the question of meaning contains the most fundamental form of transcendence. Our otherwise meaningless day-to-day existence is transcended through a connection to something that is at once more real and more meaningful. Motivations to transcend this world and the nature of that transcendence vary. Nevertheless, each of the strategies we have examined exhibits a form of transcendence. Classically, transcendence was articulated in terms of the metaphysical, as distinguished from the physical, as we have seen in the chapters on myth, philosophy, and metaphysics. But, as we have also seen, even those who reject metaphysical transcendence retain a form of transcendence. Transcendence of our natural, taken-for granted world occurs whenever we step back and self-consciously ask, "Why?" Motivated by discontent, the scientist and postmodernist, for example, both wish to transcend the "given" of their physical and social circumstances, just as the naturalist wants to transcend a dull, stereotypical experience of nature for one that is available to us when we set aside our more immediate, instrumental intentions.
Just as doubt rests on a foundation of faith, so meaninglessness rests on a foundation of meaning. Each of the strategies we've examined for investing life with meaning displays a movement from extrinsic to intrinsically meaningful experiences. Meaning's association with either correspondence or a purposeful end must give way to an experience of meaning that is intrinsically satisfying in a way that makes explanation or justification superfluous. Ironically, science was telling us this all along when it dismissed teleological ends from the universe. Meaning can no longer be delayed or located in the future; if it is to be found, it must be found in the here and now in a way that is self-justifying. Recall the prayer that advised that one should praise God not because in so doing we earn favor and rewards in this world or the next but because it is intrinsically rewarding. Magic and purposeful ends must give way to celebration without reason or justification. The pragmatist and the scientist, who derive meaning from the achievement of human, materialistic goals, must face the necessity of choosing which goals are most intrinsically worthwhile. Working scientists find intrinsic pleasure in solving puzzles and knowing the secrets of nature, regardless of their application. We participate through ritual in archetypes and myth because it is intrinsically rewarding, because in so doing we become in a sense who we are and have always been, not because of their magical effect. Albert Camus was correct in saying that we finally live without appeal, but in saying that, Camus failed to emphasize the pleasures of enjoying intrinsically fulfilling experiences, experiences, that is, that need neither justification nor explanation. The movement from instrumental meaning to intrinsic meaning is present in each of the approaches we have examined, perhaps most clearly in naturalism and its Zen-like experience of nature and life. Tolstoy's succession of childlike questions "Why?" must finally reach the point of "Just because." In this connection, recall the naturalist Ursula Goodenough's epiphany when she realized that she didn't have to ask "Why?" The achievement of intrinsically rewarding experiences signals the point at which the dissatisfactions that elicited stepping back into self-consciousness and division are overcome or transcended. Regardless of how we invest life with meaning and purpose, the attempt to resolve the question of meaning displays how humans make themselves comfortable in a hostile and wondrous world.
How do we go about achieving or knowing these intrinsically worthwhile experiences? As we have seen, the answer to this question varies, too. But beneath that variety; there is a common thread. Knowledge in all of them requires participation and active engagement, whether that engagement is seen as ritualistic identification, iconoclastic deconstruction, intellectual contemplation, or socialization to a paradigm. Objectivity, which maintains separation between the knower and the known, must give way to reintegration and tacit knowledge. "Why?" must give way to acceptance. Thinking about becomes thinking with; belief becomes faith. Seeing requires us to become new persons. In this connection, William James's contention that our commitments and practice of acting "as if" can add to reality is especially important, especially when one is sensitive to unconscious as well as conscious forms of the will. In his Pensés, Pascal ponders whether we perform the Christian ritual because we believe or whether we believe because we perform the ritual. It is, of course, a false dichotomy, because thought and participation always go together, as the postmodernists in particular have taught us. The insistent abstract questions "Why?" and "What does it mean?" are muted when we return to the bright particulars of compelling surfaces that require neither explanation nor justification, when—fully engaged—we unself-consciously practice science or philosophy, participate in ritualistic identifications, or act out our iconoclastic fantasies.
This movement from innocence to self-consciousness to what's been called a second innocence or naïveté finds a familiar example in the acquisition of other skills, such as learning a foreign language. The process of learning how to speak Spanish, for example, is very self-conscious and deliberate. Its feels unnatural and awkward, and one struggles to remember the correct word and verb tense. Eventually, however, the new skill becomes more and more unconscious and instinctive, less deliberate and more instinctual. We no longer have to self-consciously translate Spanish word by word; we simply and unself-consciously begin to understand and speak Spanish without translation. We begin to dream in Spanish. Thinking self-consciously at this point is an impediment. Analogously, I wish to say something about the question of meaning. Answering the question of meaning is like acquiring a new skill. We act as if, we self-consciously try out and practice new ways of living and being in response to frustration and meaninglessness until we acquire the skill of meaning at a new level. At this new level, meaning once again becomes less self-conscious, self-justifying, and sufficient, as it was before we asked the question.
Does the movement from original innocence—at the point before the question was asked—to a more self-conscious and halting exile, to an eventual "second innocence" in which we again act faithfully and less self-consciously sound familiar? To anyone of Western culture, it must. The movement is isomorphic to the mythical pattern of Eden, exile, and return to a second Eden. So in asking the question of meaning, we have uncovered the archetypal pattern of our search. As with all archetypes, the insistent question "Why?" is symptomatic, as Tolstoy understood: we neither invite nor can deliberately silence the question. It comes or is revealed to us, apart from our intentions, and its satisfactions are finally intrinsic rather than instrumental. What's more, though the question of meaning—and the threat or experience of meaninglessness with which it is associated—is experienced individually, it is nevertheless impersonal, universal, and timeless. Within that archetype, what appears negative—the experience of meaninglessness, self-consciousness, and exile—becomes a reoccurring interlude in a larger, more positive narrative of innocence, fall, and redemption. Meaninglessness, which feels like a loss and a fall from natural grace, is the prelude to an eventual gain. Is the experience of meaninglessness disheartening and frustrating? Absolutely. But so too are the halting attempts to speak a new language. But neither experience is terminal. Meaninglessness is an instrumental experience that motivates us to go forward until we arrive at a new integration at a different point on the spiral of faith. This is not to deny that people get stranded in the wilderness. There are those who courageously start on the journey but never return home. All journeys involve risk. But, normatively, the archetype encourages us to have faith that exile will bring us to the Promised Land. Indeed, it is saying more than that; it is saying that the Promised Land can only be reached by leaving our homes and becoming pilgrims.
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