This is a short essay about meaning by Rebecca Solnit.
This was essentially an introduction to a longer essay you can find Here: https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/we-were-made-for-this/?fbclid=IwY2xjawMk49VleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHsVSNhb9AsxUtQDjTHb7AOSEObQp7nU1AISGP5nUFcFGnfhnyEUTTYt3jKYI_aem_r9z1q-27ZbF79iCcO1IBag
--Kim
This was my fiftieth essay at the site. One I worked hard on and consider among the most important.
What we do in the world begins with who we are and who we want to be, what we believe we are capable of, and what we believe is possible. Even in the worst circumstances, people retain some forms of power, the power to decide how they will conduct themselves in the choices that remain to them, and that includes the power of our words and our worldviews. Viktor Frankl, the Jewish psychiatrist who survived the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, wrote, "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." He wrote in Man's Search for Meaning that what he learned from Auschwitz is that our deepest need is for meaning. Which comes in large part from choosing to live a meaningful life, from choosing to do what is most meaningful. Which means that what we see as giving, as in vowing to liberate all beings, gives us what we need most deeply. What is missing from so many stories is that we need to give.
When I wrote A Paradise Built in Hell, I drew deeply on the work of disaster sociologists, whose on-the-ground research contrasted dramatically with the grim version of human nature in disaster movies, the minds of politicians in actual disasters, and a lot of mainstream news coverage of disasters at least up to the Haitian earthquake of 2010. One thing they talk about is disaster convergence, the desire to help, to show up, to give, to care that sometimes means so many people show up they jam the relief work. The Cajun Navy was one example; in almost every disaster people create the community kitchens, the relief projects, reach out, offer help. In the current disaster, I see so many people stepping forward to protect people from persecution, from deportation, the loss of rights, stepping forward to protect the land and waters, the forests and national parks, the climate and the truth.
When we are generous, we give ourselves the gift of our most generous selves; when we are compassionate, we give ourselves the gift of our most compassionate selves; when we are brave, we give ourselves the gift of our most courageous selves. In giving to others, in working toward the liberation of all beings, we make the best version of ourselves, a version that cannot be made any other way, a gift we can receive only by giving. To the others who are inseparable from the largest version of ourselves.
We want to give, to share, to connect, to relieve suffering, to liberate all beings; doing so gives us meaning, purpose, lets us be our largest, most heroic selves.
We were made for this work, and when we do it we discover who we truly are.
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