This book begins with a feeling of deep bewilderment, prompted by words encountered at a museum: "One is born, one dies, the land increases". This inscription raises a fundamental question: Is that _all_ there is to our existence? Is there a reason for our being here beyond simply living out our time and eventually returning to the earth?. This central puzzle is the driving force behind the exploration that follows. Instead of quickly accepting a feeling of absurdity or the universe's apparent silence on the matter of human significance, the approach here is to think more slowly and deeply about what it means to seek meaning in life. The initial hope isn't for a universe that bends to our will or reveals some grand purpose, but rather for a potentially more "pedestrian" way of understanding what can make a life meaningful. **Meaning: A "Something" or a "Someway"?** Often, when we ask about the meaning of life, we're looking for a specific _thing_, a "something or somethings" that provides life's meaningfulness, as if it's a feature built into the very "furniture" of the universe, waiting to be discovered. This perspective is seen in thinkers like Aristotle, who believed everything has its purpose or _telos_, and living according to it means finding one's place in the universe. Even Camus, who felt the universe was silent and meaning was absent, was seeking this kind of objective, inscribed meaning. Much religious tradition also conceives of meaning this way, given by God. However, the book proposes a different way to think about this. What if meaning isn't a "something" to be discovered, but rather a "someway" of living?. A meaningful life might be one lived _in certain ways_ rather than others. This shift moves the concept of meaning from a noun (a meaning that exists) to an adjective or adverb (a life lived meaningfully). This new approach requires two things: first, defining what this "someway" is and the values it involves; and second, understanding why this kind of self-generated meaningfulness would still feel significant to us, why it would "have a grip". The aim isn't to offer cosmic validation for every life or humanity as a whole, as such grand projects are seen as likely beyond us. It's about finding a perspective where we can potentially _create_ lives that are meaningful, something worthwhile taking place between birth and death. **Happiness: Close, But Not Quite Meaning?** One might wonder if happiness is what we're really after when we think about a worthwhile life. It feels natural to say people have a right to pursue happiness. But is happiness the same as meaningfulness?. The idea that each person creates their own meaning can often feel more like deciding what makes one happy or what goals to pursue, which might not provide the "heft" or cosmic "redemption" that the longing for meaning sometimes seeks. The book encourages thinking slowly about what happiness is. Is it just pleasure?. While pleasure is undoubtedly good and contributes to a worthwhile life, the idea of simply pursuing pleasure, even with access to many sources in our modern world, doesn't seem to capture everything we desire from life. A thought experiment involving a "pleasure machine" reveals that we typically wouldn't choose a life of passive pleasure over one filled with relationships, challenges, goals, and engaged activities – what are called "life projects". The projects themselves call to us; they aren't just means to pleasure. Simple pleasure doesn't fully address the longing for meaning. Even a richer view of happiness, like Daniel Haybron's concept of "psychic affirmation," involving attunement (a tranquil relation to the world), engagement (being absorbed in activities, like "flow"), and endorsement (affirming one's life and feeling it's going well), might fall short of what we seek from meaningfulness. Haybron's happiness is a layered _emotional relation_ to one's life. While attractive and difficult to imagine a worthwhile life without something like it, it still feels, in a particular way, "too subjective" to fully answer the deep longing for our lives to be "ratified from some perspective that isn’t just that of our own happiness". We seem to seek something _outside_ of ourselves that lends significance. **Lives as Trajectories: Introducing Narrative Values** Human lives aren't just isolated moments; they unfold over time, possessing trajectories or arcs. Our past is part of who we are, and our future lies before us. The question of a meaningful life applies to this whole trajectory, not just individual moments. Seeing lives this way suggests a "narrative approach" – thinking of lives as stories with plots, themes, and characters. We understand people by knowing their stories. We even become "complicit" in creating our lives by living the stories we tell ourselves, a concept recognized in narrative therapy. Looking at the narrative character of lives might offer a clue to meaningfulness. However, this approach faces challenges. Not everyone experiences their life narratively; some, like philosopher Galen Strawson describing an "Episodic" self, live focused on current projects without much concern for a larger narrative arc. It doesn't seem right to say such lives are automatically meaningless. Also, some lives lived narratively might not seem particularly meaningful. The difficulty then is finding something _within_ the temporal character of life, perhaps coiled inside its narrativity, that provides meaning without excluding non-narrative lives. This leads to the idea of **narrative values**. These are themes that characterize the trajectory of a life and, crucially, lend it a particular kind of value – meaningfulness. Unlike simple themes like depression, which don't add value, narrative values like steadfastness _do_. Examples discussed include: - **Steadfastness:** Exhibited by characters like Dilsey in Faulkner's novel, Ralph Touchett in James's novel, Trappist monks, or musicians like John Coltrane. It involves perseverance and constancy across various aspects of life and over time. - **Intensity:** Seen in musicians like Jimi Hendrix or John Coltrane. It involves throwing oneself into projects with abandon. - Other potential narrative values mentioned include subtlety, adventurousness, intellectual curiosity, gracefulness, personal integrity, spontaneity, artistic or aesthetic creativity, spirituality, and courage. Narrative values describe _how_ a life is lived, its style or manner, not a specific goal or object achieved. They are not binary; lives can express narrative values to different degrees, and many lives express multiple values. Recognizing these values in a life, whether one's own or another's, requires careful perception and judgment. Importantly, expressing a narrative value doesn't necessarily require consciously reflecting on it or aiming for it. It's about living in a way that _can be recognized_ as expressing that value. **Objective Attractiveness: Narrative Values vs. Subjectivity** Narrative values are proposed as candidates for the "objective attractiveness" component of meaningfulness, alongside subjective engagement. They offer standards or criteria for assessing lives from a perspective that is not solely private. A challenge arises here: Couldn't narrative values just reduce to subjective feelings? If feeling intense makes a life intense, aren't we back to mere subjectivity?. The response is that narrative values are about _lived_ or _expressed_ ways of being, not just _felt_ experiences. The intensity of Jimi Hendrix's life, for example, was expressed through his actions, practice, and creation, not just the feeling he or a fan might have experienced during a concert. Similarly, subtle reading (like Marco Polo's) is a lived subtlety, distinct from merely _feeling_ subtle. Another challenge is whether using general categories like narrative values diminishes the uniqueness of individual lives. If Dilsey's life and a Trappist monk's life are both meaningful because they express steadfastness, does their individuality disappear?. The argument against this is twofold: First, judging narrative values _does_ refer to the particularities of a life's unique path – Dilsey's steadfastness is rooted in her specific context, just as the monk's is in his. The general value is seen _in_ the specific life. Second, meaningfulness is just one type of value a life can have. Assessing a life for meaningfulness doesn't exhaust its other values, like moral goodness or its unique style or character. The objectivity of narrative values isn't seen as something inscribed in the universe _a priori_, but rather as something that emerges from a shared understanding, a "web of reasons" within a community or culture. These values can be debated, challenged, or new ones recognized. **Meaning, Morality, and Other Values** A significant distinction is drawn between meaningfulness and moral goodness. A person can live a morally good life – contributing to society, being loyal, making sacrifices – without necessarily feeling absorbed or engaged by it. Ralph Touchett is presented as an example of a morally good life that might be considered impoverished in meaningfulness because he lacks subjective attraction or engagement. His detachment from his own emotions diminishes the "fit" between himself and the narrative value (steadfastness) he displays. Conversely, a life can be meaningful without being morally good. Lance Armstrong's life, before his doping was fully exposed, might be seen as meaningful due to its subjective engagement with cycling and expression of steadfast commitment and intensity. Yet, his treatment of others raises serious moral concerns. The existence of a meaningful life that is morally problematic shows that meaningfulness is distinct from morality. This distinction doesn't prevent moral judgment or action; it just means meaningfulness isn't a "Get Out of Jail Free" card for moral failures. However, the possibility of a meaningful life dedicated to evil presents a difficulty, suggesting that perhaps some narrative values, like courage, when applied to evil, are admired due to a residue of their moral context rather than purely as narrative values. Meaningfulness is also distinguished from societal notions of success like wealth, fame, or public achievement. Many lives that express narrative values – like Dilsey, the Trappist monks, or Claus von Stauffenberg (whose project failed) – are not defined by conventional success. Meaningfulness lies in _how_ a life is lived, the way its trajectory expresses narrative values, not in what is achieved or recognized. Meaningfulness is also seen as distinct from the overall _value_ or worth of a person's life. A life lacking in meaning isn't necessarily worthless; it can still have moral value or simply value in being human or alive. It's also compared to aesthetic value; like beauty, a meaningful life adds something worthwhile, a kind of splendor, but is not something one is obliged to create. **Putting it Together: A Framework for Reflection** Meaningfulness, then, is proposed as the intersection of two sides: **subjective engagement** (being absorbed and involved in one's life and projects) and **objective attractiveness** (living a life trajectory that expresses one or more narrative values). To the extent these two meet, a life is meaningful. This view offers a framework for reflecting on our lives, assessing their trajectories, and considering whether they express themes that lend them significance. It doesn't claim to reveal a pre-existing cosmic purpose but suggests that meaning can emerge _from_ our engagement with the world and how we navigate our existence over time. This approach provides a way to think about living a worthwhile life that doesn't rely on divine decree or universal teleology, and it distinguishes meaningfulness from happiness, success, or even moral goodness, while acknowledging their complex relations. It's a tool for self-assessment and guidance, suggesting directions for making a life more meaningful, rather than a simple checklist or a guarantee of cosmic redemption.