Meaning revisited!
The meaning crisis underpins many of today’s intractable ills
I have just finished a 50-hour series entitled Awakening From The Meaning Crisis* created by John Vervaeke, an assistant Professor at Toronto University. The first half is about how we got to where we are today from a historical perspective and the second half is about what we can do to rebuild meaning into our collective lives.
He proposes that the maladaptive responses we see to the meaning crisis range from ‘pure suicide’ through depressive suicide and the mental health crisis, loneliness, addiction (from drugs to gambling to sex), ‘virtual’ exodus (moving our lives into video games and social media), and substitution strategies (for example, politics taking the role of religion, something that is evident in the US, or super-hero myths).
Adaptive strategies are activities such as ‘serious play’, the mindfulness revolution, other meditative and contemplative practices, connecting practices (e.g. circling, restorative justice) and various embodied practices (e.g. dancing, gardening).
John laments that adaptive strategies are all at the individual or small group level, there is not yet a meta-narrative or big picture that replaces what has been lost.
Vincent_van_Gogh - Starry Night
Education plays an important role in helping young people to equip themselves so that their lives have meaning. The recreation of a meta-narrative in which humans can live harmoniously with each other and within the limits of our planet’s ecosystem will most likely be developed by their generation or their children’s generation. Unless we can do it first (I am not holding my breath).
We must equip them as well as possible so they can do this.
You can download a pdf version of the Why We Teach here. Click here to see a replay of a recent webinar that explores the Step Back to Empower program.
*the series can be found here.
John Corrigan is an expert in helping individuals to bring their whole of mind to their daily life and increase their effectiveness and the effectiveness of those around them. This expertise scales from the individual to the team to the organisation. At the core of this work is the practice of encounter. Earlier blogs can be found here.
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