James Hollis

A Life of Meaning

Laura Mei

For each traveling soul, the summons is to recognize the role fate plays in limiting us and yet to honour destiny seeking to unfold through us. The wisdom of the ancients affirms that we all have an appointment with destiny. Am I going to somehow show up as best I can under the conditions, external and internal, that life has presented me? Carl Jung said once, "We all walk in shoes too small for us," and that metaphor was his way of saying we necessarily have adaptive, protective patterns and stories, but because of that, they limit our summons from destiny.

Hubris is psychological inflation. Hubris shows up when I think I know enough to know enough and that I'm making proper choices all the time. Inevitably we don't know enough to know enough about the forces at work within our lives and our choices even as we are required to make important choices on a daily basis.

It's a little disorienting to the ego when it realizes that none of us is smart enough or wise enough to forsee the consequences of our choices, that somewhere down the line what I thought was right might bring harm. Just by being here, consuming energy, we bring harm to this world, not because we're bad people but because we're human beings.

Your vocation is really not about a job, per se. It's about what is truly worthy of your commitment, your service. The calling itself is a mystery that comes from someplace deep within the soul. Inspiration — the word 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘦 translated as "the breath within" — means to have the breath of the gods moving through us. What we are called to do is often not what we do for a living. 𝘐𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐'𝘮 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘮𝘺 𝘷𝘰𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯? 𝘋𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘭? 𝘖𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘨𝘰 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘣𝘺 𝘮𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥'𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘦?

So our job is to pay attention; to listen, to attend to. When we are in accord with the terrain of the inner life, we experience supportive energy, a feeling of confirmation, and most of all, most elusive but most necessary, a sense of meaning, fulfillment, and purpose. 

One of the things we learned early on in childhood is the world is big and I'm not; the world is powerful and I'm not. Sometimes to get along, you go along and avoid conflict and make nice and stay out of harm's way, which is very rational, very adaptive, and quite common. However, where has the shadow shown up in your patterns of avoidance, of conflict, or of compliance with the pressure of the moment, leading to decisions that were not in your interests or others' best interests? Sometimes to be a person of value, we have to engage in conflict. Sometimes we have to risk not complying with outer pressures if we're going to be creatures of value.

Ask yourself: 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘰 𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸 𝘶𝘱? Everybody has a sense of an area where they need to grow up. A way to define that is a place where you know you need to be accountable, yet for reasons you don't know, you're slip-sliding along. Where do you wait for clarity of vision before risking something? While it's important to gather information, often in life we never get total clarity about anything — and we still have to act. Life is ambiguous, life is difficult, life is risk-filled, and sometimes we have to take the risk and dive into it. Find your own path. My path is my path. Yours is yours. Respectfully, we can learn from eachother, but don't wait for someone to tell you what your life is about. Something inside of you knows what it wants, and the rest of you has to be summoned, mobilized to serve that as best you can.

Of all of our hauntings, the most devastating arise from our unlived life — the life that we're carrying within us as a possibility and as a service to the universe and others. The wisdom of nature and of our ancestors courses through all of us. There are also archetypal forces seeking renewal. Sometimes we have to ask the question directly: 𝘋𝘰 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘭, 𝘩𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘐 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥 soul? 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘧 𝘐 𝘥𝘰, 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘦? That is an intimidating question but a necessary summons to consider from time to time.

Dreams are not arbitrary. They are natural by-products of our psyche seeking its own healing and development. Dreams come to us as part of the psyche's natural process of healing itself or developing our journey. Active imagination and dream work are forms of paying attention to and listening to the psyche as it manifests. There, we begin to realize that the Self is transcendent to ordinary ego consciousness and is seeking to connect with us with the wisdom of nature. When we do this, it's a humbling process, but it gives a profound sense of personal purpose, depth, and dignity to our journey. No amount of outer accomplishments or recognition by the world ever equals that inner conviction — the conviction that one is living one's journey as honestly and as faithfully as one can.

If something is real, if something is important for you, it will resonate for you. If someone else says this is important, that this is what you should think, feel, believe, do, and it doesn't resonate, then, well, maybe it's true for them but it's not your truth. Resonance is not something we create. Resonance is an autonomous response of our soul when we are in right relationship to it. Resonance, re-sonance, re-sounding — the tuning fork inside of us hums. When we feel a sense of resonance, we live those summonses, those challenges. If they're not lived, we're still enacting what Jung called the provisional life, a life that someday could be real but is just a received script at this point.

For every outer decline, failure of powers, and environmental constriction, something within each of us is challenged and summoned to grow. Amid the wreckage of history, the carnage of loss, and the growing catalog of grief, the soul is summoned always to grow. We are grateful for the markers our predecessors left behind and the dark wood we all enter  but each of us must find our personal way through, as some did theirs before us. I believe, even more than ever before, that the quality of our lives will be a direct function of the magnitude of the questions we keep asking — questions we are now obliged to pursue for ourselves.

It is precisely our mortality, paradoxically, that makes possible, even necessary, our need for meaning. But our world, the modern world, has evolved five treatment plans for this. The first is frenzied activity. Keep busy, keep busy. That way this issue doesn't trouble your soul at all. Second, we've developed a culture of numbing. Third is our culture of distraction to keep people from reflecting on the depth, dignity, and limits of their journey. Most of all, we've evolved into an obsession with aging, mortality, life extension — the fourth plan. We talk about heroic measures against the enemy or against nature. Fifth, there may be a splendid recovery of a pagan celebration here — the whole idea of 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘱𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘮. Since we're here a short time, let's live it as fully as we can and fling ourselves into it. On the other hand, I think this awareness of our limited journey can bring up a daily agenda for us. It's not morbid to reflect on this subject. That's the nervous ego growing agitated again. Rather, it's a summons on a daily basis to address the task of wisdom. We're drowning in information, but information doesn't equal knowledge, and knowledge per se doesn't equal wisdom.

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