The Crisis of Meaning and Subjective Well-Being: An Existentialist Scientist's View

Some factors that can help you withstand a Crisis of Meaning are, thank goodness, factors you can control. Knowing they are under your control is key to improving your life.

Of late there has been much discussion on The Crisis of Meaning, which means different things to different people. Some have approached it from an ontological viewpoint. I thought I might weigh in on your personal existentialist journey from a scientific perspective.

Meaning and Subjective Well-Being Require Resilience and Self-Control

Individuals find meaning in their lives in myriad ways. Some defer to a higher power to trust that whatever their lot, there must be a greater reason for their disposition relative to “where” they believe they believe they should be. This can lead, for some, to lifetime fulfillment (e.g., trust in God’s plan). For others, it can lead to continuous cycles of resignment and crisis.

Some of these people consider themselves “seekers”, or “the lost”. I see these as people who can see enough of the pieces of the puzzle to reject the supernatural explanations as ultimately sufficient for understanding - which is not the same as rejecting the supernatural. They experience cognitive disequilibrium: a necessary pre-condition that precedes learning.

Others commune with “the universe” via meditation, which is any means for one to “check out” from the demands of the conscious stream of their lives, without supplanting it with other “content”. Meditation can take various forms, such as transcendental meditation, tantric sex, citing the Rosary, exercise, working out, or reading simple, predictable novels. Habitual quietudes like these allow the brain to sort and prioritize effortlessly - passively, without (necessarily) involving directed conscious thought.

Some Seekers reject the supernatural, and in so doing, leave themselves at risk of seeking guidance about ultimate truths from some other authority. They might turn to “experts” - and technocracy is born. They might seek guidance from the government - and an authoritarian government is born. In an open society, we create the type of government we live under by our choices on who we choose to endow with influence and power - and by our choices on who we choose to reject. This occurs on daily basis, not merely through elections, but also through a discourse of various types, both rational and irrational.

The power to endure day-to-day stressors is a characteristic of individuals whose exhibit resilience. Resilience should not be confused with tolerance. More importantly, it is a skill, not a fundamental character trait. We endure and tolerate more stress from some sources than others because our minds are always doing risk/benefit analyses that we may not be completely aware of. Similarly, our capacity for self-control is context-dependent.

Exceptions to these observations of course doubt exist, as in people who are suffering from mental illness. Self-control can become challenging due to acute stress or the prolonged effects of chronic stress. We all have our limits, for example, before we “lose” our patience. Self-control and resilience are, of course, related - and our “limits” are dependent on the immediate and cumulative context, and our course our hormonal states vary with stresses and our social interactions.

Learning and Cellular Processes Beget Our States of Mind

Learning always involves cellular processes of which we are not immediately aware. The construction of new pathways, or the reinforcement of existing ones, or the pruning of existing ones via microglia-based autophagy. We are not, of course, aware of any of the physicochemical and biological processes we are undertaking. These processes require energy and work whether they involve conscious awareness of the changes occurring in our brains or not. Every experience we have, and every endogenous, autonomous thought we have has the potential to change our brains. This does not mean we constantly change our minds - but we are constantly experimenting with the possibility.

Whether the quietudes we use help us reinforce our understanding and beliefs likely depends on the initial conditions - how far along a path of comprehension and understanding we have traveled. There’s also the issue of the capacity to comprehend, which is a function of which parts of the journey we have managed to explore and, to an extent, intellect.

Environmental toxins, stress, alcohol, drugs, and injected metals can influence, impair or alter the cellular processes that impact our states of mind. Our capacities to learn, understand, comprehend, and relate to each other are all limited by these exposures. A first step toward dealing with a Crisis of Meaning for some will be to establish or change priorities about these exposures.

We must recognize that decisions to allow these toxic factors into our bodies and our lives are, in fact, decisions. The decision to acquiesce to unwanted exposures by just getting on with our lives is to surrender our states of mind to factors that we otherwise would reject. Given sufficient knowledge and awareness, and sufficient power to choose, our well-being depends on our sheer will to stand up to those who would benefit from our surrender.

When our power to choose has been stolen, all that is required is sufficient knowledge and awareness to motivate us sufficiently to stand up to those who have stolen our options and assert our power to choose. In other words, our suffering at the hands of others is based on a balance between sufficient knowledge and awareness of risk and the power to choose. If others fail to recognize our power to choose what happens to our bodies - what is injected, what we must accept - we must assert our power unconditionally.

Crisis of Meaning - WONDER AI + JLW

Both Resilience and Self-Control Affect Subjective Well-Being

A study by Bernadette Vötter of the University of Innsbruck in Austria, published in the journal in the journal Behavioral Sciences, was designed to reveal underlying psychological mechanisms that mediate the association between the crisis of meaning and subjective well-being among gifted individuals. The two psychological mechanisms are ones to which we can all relate: resilience and self-control. The study found a lack of a sense of meaning can reduce the beneficial effects of resilience among intellectually gifted adults. Similarly, they found that a lack of a sense of meaning can lead to a reduction in self-control among academically high-achieving adults.

The authors of the study concluded:

“Both resilience and self-control are beneficial resources with the potential to support gifted individuals in living happy and fulfilled lives. Thus, HIQ could particularly benefit from supporting their ability to cope with adversity, while HAA could particularly benefit from strengthening their willpower to modify undesired emotions, behaviors, and desires.”

There are mysteries about the meaning in life, and factors that influence happiness (indeed even the definition of “happiness” is worth a reflection. Many people have not had the opportunity to tease apart the functional relationships between their decisions and non-decisions (which are also decisions) and their subjective sense of well-being.

It can be empowering to learn that resilience and self-control can also be had based on decisions about how we choose to structure our lives. If you need the order to think, create order and reject chaos. If you need to create to feel well, create. If you need to contemplate, seek a quietude. But most importantly, consider taking an inventory of decisions that you have made - including decisions you have not made, but rather adopted as the status quo - and see if either self-control or resilience (or both) are what you really need to focus on.

I’ve not explored directly the role of the impact of fulfilling and enriching experiences in promoting resilience and self-control. Overcoming adversity, achieving a goal, enjoying a relationship, or performing a job well-done can all improve our sense of self-worth. What would happen if improving our resilience and our self-control were seen as fulfilling and enriching experiences? These are where ironman challenges and showing up for that meeting with the antagonist at work - and sometimes just getting out of bed and having a go at having a day can play important roles in a path out of a Crisis of Meaning.

Improve Your Decision-Making by Making Deposits in Your Emotional Bank Account

Now that you know that your sense of well-being is mediated by self-control and resilience, find the factors that increase your resilience and your self-control, and watch your decision-making improve.

We’re still talking about the first steps. Other factors you might measure, like the development of new skills, an earnest and aware existentialist journey, and your impact on the world around you will follow naturally. While most people might use these are external measures of one’s contentment, they are just the natural consequence of complete engagement, which comes from achieving a mindstate of well-being.

You can consider each of these improvements to be deposits in your emotional bank account. And consider providing enriching experiences to others deposits in theirs! In any case, you don’t only have this. You OWN this. It’s your journey. Find what empowers your sense of meaning by finding what enriches your life, what enhances your resilience, and find out what, for you fosters ever-increasing self-control.

Sometimes even letting go of things that have the opposite effects is necessary.

Citation: Vötter B. Crisis of Meaning and Subjective Well-Being: The Mediating Role of Resilience and Self-Control among Gifted Adults. Behav Sci (Basel). 2019 Dec 26;10(1):15. doi: 10.3390/bs10010015. PMID: 31887973; PMCID: PMC7016625.