Experiencing Meaning
The second path by which one can arrive at meaning in life is: "experiencing something or encountering someone; in other words, meaning can be found not only in work but also in love.
... in this context, the logotherapeutic 'notion that experiencing can be as valuable as achieving is therapeutic because it compensates for our one-sided emphasis on the external world of achievement at the expense of the internal world of experience.'"
Viktor E. Frankl. “Man’s Search for Meaning. An Introduction to Logotherapy.” ed 3, Simon & Schuster, NY, 1984.
This path is again an opening up, a going beyond, transcending fear: dedicating our life to loving an individual, family, strangers, or perhaps even "all that is". Some of us will directly experience the transpersonal, post-symbolic dimension, thereby qualitatively changing our self-concept, worldview and behaviour.
“Fear is the primary mechanism sustaining the concept of the ‘other’ and reinforcing . . . loneliness and distance in our lives. [Through fear] we identify with a fragment of reality rather than with the whole.
Metta [love, loving-kindness] overcomes the illusion of separateness... (and thereby) ... overcomes all of the states that accompany this fundamental error of separateness — [including] fear, alienation, loneliness, and despair . . . ” Sharon Salzberg
The Old Apothecary Bakery & Cafe, Halifax, Nova Scotia
