“Who am I when no one is watching? Is there an end goal? Is there a God, a superpower watching and influencing our deeds? Does all of this have deeper meaning beyond the present? Why did I have to go through all of that? Do I have free will?”
Contemplating one’s purpose and meaning in life is a universal psychological quandary for humans. Though this capacity of self-reflection is highly beneficial as it helps us devise complex strategies for risk management as well as for grasping opportunities in the environment, it is also enveloped with the unpleasant understanding of one’s mortality. Existential crisis includes the inner conflicts and anxieties that accompany human responsibility, freedom, purpose, and commitment. Thus, existential anxiety is an expression of being occupied with ultimate life questions such as loneliness, identity and mortality, and meaninglessness. Many researchers have attributed meaninglessness as a primary existential concern; within which subsides the aforementioned life questions.
The core definition of meaning is that it connects things. Psychological literature distinguishes between two types of meaning, both entail the idea of connection, at varying levels.
The first level revolves around comprehension: to detect and expect certain patterns, associations, and invariants. This is the kind of meaning where we know and expect water to be wet, January to be followed by February, or the word “yes” to indicate affirmation in English. Our brain and senses seem to be evolutionarily wired for expecting and enjoying patterns. The experience that a stimulus makes sense elicits a mild positive affect.
The second type of meaning, often known as “capital-M-meaning,” involves questions of essence and exploration of how something fits within a larger system of value and meaning. When people contemplate the meaning of life in general and their life in particular, it is within the purview of this broader type of meaning.
Various writings and research have tried to highlight the contradiction of a meaning-seeking animal being thrown into a universe that does not come furnished with preordained meanings, emphasizing the necessity for each individual to construct their own meaning system. Failure to construct such a meaning system—living without goals, values, or ideals—is associated with considerable distress whereas the presence of meaning in life is associated with psychological well-being and a plethora of desirable qualities, including longevity. A recent study found that among community-dwelling older people, a high sense of purpose in life was associated with a 57% decrease in mortality risk across five years.
Terror management theory (TMT) posits that awareness of mortality, when combined with the biologically rooted desire for life, creates a potential for paralyzing terror. To function effectively in the world, people need to ward off this terror in some way. According to TMT, this much-needed protection is provided by an existential anxiety buffer. In this, the key components are self-esteem, faith in one’s cultural worldview, and close interpersonal relations. Since it was first introduced, hundreds of studies show that reminders of mortality amplify the attempt to maintain, bolster, and defend one’s cultural worldview, self-esteem, and close relationships. Threats to these things, on the other hand, increase the accessibility of death-related cognition. As a whole, the TMT body of research points to death anxiety as a singularly important motivating force, playing a role in domains as varied as religion and spirituality, human sexuality, legal decision-making, consumer behavior, and psychopathology.
At both micro and macro levels, meaning is profoundly comforting for the psyche and helps to keep death anxiety at bay. A closer examination of the existentially protective function of meaning reveals evidence that mortality-based thoughts fuel teleological attributions—beliefs that things exist and happen for a reason, that there is a purpose to everything. Such beliefs seem to effectively soothe death anxiety. For instance, researchers found that experimentally induced teleological beliefs about the natural world (example, “bees carry pollen in order to help flowers reproduce”) decreased the accessibility of death thoughts, whereas mortality reminders increased belief in a purposeful world and scientifically unwarranted teleological statements (example, “forest fires occur in order to clean up the forest”).
Similarly, another study’s findings reported that mortality salience manipulation increased participants’ endorsements that a negative, life-altering event “happened as part of a grand purpose even if those involved don’t realize it.”
Becker (1973) wrote that “man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level.” The meaning assigned in itself is of little significance here, but the belief in the actuality and certainty of meaning acts as a pillar in navigating the existential void we, as humans, often experience.
The need for meaning from an existential perspective, at both micro and macro levels, is crucial to warding off the fear accompanying awareness of mortality.
Securing the micro type of meaning can play an essential role in buffering death anxiety. Thus, when things make sense and fit the knowledge schemas with which we are familiar, we tend to feel more relaxed.
At a macro level, perceptions of life as meaningful are vital to keeping death anxiety at bay. Indeed, people everywhere seek personal meaning in domains that could allow them to transcend their corporal and temporal limitations. Sources of meaning in life and the components of the existential anxiety buffers as delineated by TMT (example, self-esteem, faith in cultural worldviews, and close personal relationships) overlap remarkably, highlighting the centrality of meaning to any endeavor aimed at symbolically defying death. To finally answer our title, to be or not to be is definitely the question, one filled with a lifelong fate of searching for purpose and meaning in our being.
Jasleen Kaur
