The Psychology Of Finding Meaning In Life - John Vervaeke
Here are the top 10 key takeaways from John Vervaeke's discussion on finding meaning in life, offering practical wisdom for navigating our modern existential challenges.
1. Meaning has multiple dimensions
Meaning involves several interconnected levels. At one level, it's about making sense of the world around us - how we pay attention to the right information to solve problems. This sense-making dimension is often called coherence in meaning literature.
Beyond individual sense-making, meaning requires connection with others. Most of our problem-solving happens in coordination with other people. We need social connection because individually we're quite vulnerable, but together we can accomplish extraordinary things. Language helps us coordinate but also exposes us to each other in unique ways, requiring trust and forgiveness.
2. The standard psychological model of meaning is incomplete
John Vervaeke criticizes the standard psychological construct of "meaning in life" for being insufficient. The common metrics focus on coherence (does your sense-making make sense to you), purpose (which he finds problematic), and significance (having things that aren't transitory).
The psychological model misses the normative dimension of meaning. When we say a life is meaningful, we're not just describing it but praising it. The model is divorced from the cultivation of wisdom and virtue, which across philosophical and religious traditions are intertwined with meaning.
Another major limitation is that the psychological model only focuses on individual attitudes rather than how the world is showing up for people. It fails to address whether your meaning allows for reciprocal opening and alignment with deeper reality.
3. Realness is central to meaning
People have a deep need to connect with what feels "real." Vervaeke illustrates this with a powerful example: when asked if they would want to know about a partner's infidelity even if it meant ending the relationship, most people immediately say yes because otherwise "it wouldn't be real."
This sense of realness transcends the apparent benefits of a situation. Just as in "The Truman Show" or "The Matrix," we intuitively recognize that living in an illusion, no matter how pleasant, is unsatisfying. This is why authenticity and truth are so important to a meaningful life.
Our sense of realness isn't just about having correct information. It involves presence, connection, and participating in something that feels substantive and genuine. We can detect "fakeness" in relationships and experiences, and this undermines meaning.
4. Orientation rather than purpose
Vervaeke suggests replacing the concept of "purpose" with "orientation." Purpose implies working toward an ultimate goal, which becomes problematic because if you never reach your goal, your life was meaningless, and if you do reach it, you lose purpose going forward.
Orientation is about being grounded in relation to what is true, good, and beautiful. Unlike purpose, which can be egocentric (what I want to have), orientation is reality-centric (what I need to be to connect with reality, myself, and others).
This shift from destination to journey, from finite to infinite game, allows for continuous engagement with meaning. It reconnects us to standards that transcend our individual desires and helps us navigate life in a more sustainable way.
5. Some truths are only knowable through transformation
Certain important truths cannot be learned through logical reasoning alone but require personal transformation. These "unteachable lessons" include realizations like "money and success won't make you happy" - something people rarely arrive at logically but must experience.
We cannot know who we'll become or what it will be like after transformation until we've gone through it. This contradicts the modern notion that all truths should be accessible through calculation. Instead, many profound truths are only disclosed after committing to fundamental change.
To navigate this challenge, we use what Vervaeke calls "serious play" - creating liminal spaces where we can imagine and practice aspects of transformation. Like getting a dog before having children, these practices allow us to taste what transformation might be like without fully committing.
6. Humans are poor judges of what's best for them
Modern culture emphasizes autonomy and self-governance, which has value but has also fostered arrogance that we always know what's best for ourselves. In reality, we're quite bad at discovering our own self-deception and predicting what will make us happy long-term.
We struggle with "hyperbolic discounting" - finding present stimuli very salient and future consequences less so. This is why it's difficult to lose weight, study, or save for retirement. Logical arguments often don't help overcome these biases.
Maturity involves both taking responsibility and "facing up to reality" - a humbling stance that acknowledges our limitations. This requires being willing to trust others' perspectives sometimes more than our own, especially when it comes to our blind spots.
7. Three responses to the meaning crisis
Vervaeke identifies three typical responses to the contemporary meaning crisis. The first is reactive despair, seen in rising rates of depression, anxiety, suicidality, loneliness, and addiction - people drifting toward despair despite increasing social connections.
The second is the replacement strategy, where people try to substitute traditional sources of meaning with alternatives. This includes fervent attachment to fictional universes like Marvel, political ideologies, or "conspirituality" (a mix of conspiracy theories and spirituality).
The third response shows hopeful adaptation, with people seeking wisdom through ancient philosophies like Stoicism, mindfulness practices, psychedelics, and biological communities. COVID-19 served as a cleaving point, revealing different levels of "existential resilience" when normal routines were disrupted.
8. Self-centered spirituality is problematic
The standard meaning in life construct is egocentric, focused only on what meaning an individual finds rather than how much meaning they create for others. This self-centered orientation leads to spiritual bypassing - using spirituality to avoid economic and ethical responsibilities.
The growing "spiritual but not religious" movement often represents what scholars call "the religion of me" - doing religious behaviors but only for and evaluated by oneself. This approach is problematic because we're very poor at self-correction without external feedback.
We easily spot biases in others but struggle to recognize our own. This is why dialogue and community have traditionally been essential to spiritual growth - others help us see our blind spots. When we withdraw into self-centered spirituality, we become vulnerable to self-deception.
9. Meaning requires different types of knowing
Propositional knowledge (facts and theories) is just one type of knowing. Equally important are skill-based knowing (knowing how), perspective knowing (what it's like to be in a situation), and participatory knowing (feeling like you belong or fit in a place).
These non-propositional forms of knowing significantly contribute to our sense of what's real and meaningful. For example, you could have all the facts about a loved one, but without their presence, something essential is missing. Similarly, technical knowledge without embodied practice lacks depth.
Access to these non-propositional types of knowing often requires imagination - not as distraction but as insight. This "imaginal" dimension helps us understand others' minds, gain self-knowledge, and grasp complex concepts through models and metaphors.
10. Practice across four dimensions is essential
Vervaeke recommends cultivating practices across four dimensions he calls "DIME": Dialogical, Imaginal, Mindful, and Embodiment. No single practice is sufficient; we need sets of practices that compensate for each other's weaknesses.
Dialogical practices involve mutual "midwifery" where people help each other give deeper birth to themselves. Imaginal practices engage imagination in "serious play" to explore transformation. Mindfulness includes both meditation (attending to mental framing) and contemplation (looking outward to see more clearly).
Physical practices include both seated and moving exercises that carry awareness into bodily experience. Through this ecology of practices, we can develop deeper connections to reality, ourselves, and others - addressing multiple dimensions of meaning simultaneously.