A Sense Of Meaning

Rarely do I hear anyone who speaks about the topic of meaning bring up anything about the difference between perceptions of meaning and meaning itself and how nothing can be known apart from logical proof even if one's entire sense of wellbeing is held up by an unproven but possible concept.  Seldom have I seen it acknowledged that what is morally meaningful might be very contrary to someone's expectations or preferences.  No, the focus of the typical person, a non-rationalist, is on what they can do to feel empowered or like their life has meaning.

They are not primarily concerned if concerned at all with whether something is truly meaningful, especially if it means they would have to change their worldview and practices to align with this reality.  No, they want to feel fulfilled.  All the better, a non-rationalist might even directly think, if they can achieve this without any substantial change to themselves or without any at all!  In fact, they want to feel fulfilled without regard for objective logical facts, such as that if something is evil, it should not be done no matter how much pleasure, excitement, or psychological stability it brings anyone.  Lost in emotionalistic delusion and stupor, their priorities are invalid.  This sort of person is in actuality likely to never really explore the sharp distinction between the concept of objective meaning and subjective fulfillment.

If there happens to be any exploration of whether something is objectively meaningful, be it a philosophy or a lifestyle (which is always a direct or indirect expression of a philosophy and someone's philosophical stances and priorities), it for the non-rationalist inevitably approached only through the irrelevant lenses of personal preference/perception or cultural approval/"normalcy".  If not one of these, it will really be about the other, if not a combination of both.  Unless a key factor changed, it would not matter anyway even if they did contemplate this issue: as a non-rationalist, they are incapable of having knowledge until they resolve to make no assumptions and recognize the self-necessary, self-evident truths of logical axioms.

That it is far easier for an irrational person to remain irrational and simply pursue whatever makes them happy to the point of feeling fulfilled changes nothing about how if something is not objectively meaningful, it is objectively meaningless.  And believing otherwise is asinine, whether on the basis of passive or active assumptions.  Yet no one has to be rationalistic to experience the depths or allure of an intimately personal, emotionally charged desire for meaning.  Founded on logical truth or not, on objective moral value or not (I do not mean that it can be proven that something is morally good, as opposed to probably good), a life someone maintains an interest in preserving will almost certainly need at least subjective satisfaction to underpin it.

One truth that can be very challenging is that while it is possible for there to be objective meaning, and all truth is dictated in one way or another by logic, the fact that logic is intrinsically true does not require that anything really is good or meaningful.  Truth exists by inherent necessity, truth of the strictly logical sort, not the laws of nature or physical substance for them to act upon.  Whether anything is good instead of seemingly good according to someone's mere intuition or preferences is not demonstrable—because it is not necessarily true that there is good or that a given thing must be good if so.  Life still goes on.

In either case, having or craving feelings of meaning does not make someone irrational or evil.  Given that someone does not deny or ignore logical truths or transgress whatever moral responsibilities might exist in order to do so, pursuing a sense of fulfillment could not possibly be erroneous (exclusively within these confines).  A person would in such a case not believe or engage in anything false or problematic in the only important ways—though it can be a likely outcome, socially offending others in this process is not problematic except in the sense of impairing reputation, a meaningless thing anyway.  Still, never would he or she confuse a feeling of empowerment or a sense of meaning for true meaning, which would not depend on subjective experience or circumstance.