REAL WELLNESS REPORT NUMBER 851

Reason Exuberance Athleticism and Liberty

The Dimensions of REAL Wellness®

March 21, 2023

The lyrics of this song summarize the view of the publisher as to the MOL and preview what you can anticipate in this edition

Don, Publisher

The REAL Wellness Report

(Photo by Bill Hettler, circa 1980)

A brilliant one minute, 34 second overview re finding ample MOL, not in spite of but because of the impermanence of death. Click here for a sample Moment by Sam Harris

THERE IS NO UNIVERSAL MEANING OF LIFE (MOL).

LIFE ITSELF IS MEANINGLESS (Mx); MEANING IS UP TO YOU.

THIS CAN AND SHOULD BE GREETED AS VERY GOOD NEWS.

RWR 851 FEATURES IDEAS FOR CHOOSING YOUR OWN MOL.

According to our tradition, when a man dies, there comes to him the Angel, who says, Now I will tell you the secret of life and the meaning of the universe.

One man to whom this happened said, Take off, grey Angel.

Where were you when I needed you?

Howard Nemerov, The Western Approaches, Poems. 1973-75.

INTRODUCTION

The meaning of life was a matter of interest to me before I discovered and became absorbed by the concept of wellness in the early 1970s; thereafter and to this day half a century later, the topic remains a welcome passion.

Concluding that there is no one MOL, granted by a god or otherwise common, shared and applicable to all humans, only increases my interest in devising, testing and fine-tuning multiple meanings and purposes that guide my existence. In doing so, I've been entertained and influenced by countless conversations, lectures, tunes (e.g., George M. Cohen's Life's A Very Funny Proposition After All and Eric Idle's The Galaxy Song), movies (e.g., Monty Python's The Meaning of Life) and especially books devoted solely to the topic. Among my favorites that I have read more than once are the following:

Durant, Will. On the Meaning of Life. Long and Smith, New York, 1932.
Gould, Stephen Jay. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. W.W. Norton and Company, 1990.
Lewis, Ralph. Finding Purpose in a Godless World. Prometheus, 2018.
Morehead, Hugh S. The Meaning of Life. Chicago Press, Chicago, 1988.
Friend, David and the Editors of LIFE Magazine. The Meaning of Life. Little Brown and Company, Boston, 1991.
___________. More Reflections on the Meaning of Life. 1992.
Yalom, Irvin D. Existential Psychotherapy. Basic Books, 1980.

In fact, I wrote one myself decades ago entitled, (The Book of Wellness: A Secular Approach to Spirituality, Meaning and Purpose), Prometheus Press, 1996). Several of the wellness leaders who provided their perspectives on the MOL for that book continue to update their evolving views, as did Dr. Bill Hettler recently. Bill is one of the three founders of the National Wellness Institute.

One surprise while reading these books and speaking with leaders during research for my own MOL book was discovering how many noted advice-givers declined to opine on the MOL question. Why? Perhaps they thought it best to just Let the Mystery Be, as Iris DeMent suggests in this lovely song.

REAL WELLNESS, MOL & Mx

I mostly gave up on the word wellness after witnessing the term being emasculated, misused, misinterpreted and otherwise rendered nearly unintelligible, to the point that it no longer refers to lifestyles focused on gaining and maintaining states of wellbeing beyond the absence of illness or disease. Now it is associated with beauty treatments, medical services, luxury spa resort tourism, real estate, so-called holistic or complementary healing, weight loss and on and on. Dr. Halbert L. Dunn, the originator of the modern wellness movement through a decade of lectures and his landmark book, High Level Wellness, would be flabbergasted, perhaps even gobsmacked, to read a spa-based organization's claim that there is a global wellness economy of $4.6 trillion annually.

Readers of this RWR know that REAL wellness® was created to promote genuine wellness and, if necessary, to identify and discourage the misrepresentation and exploitation of this valuable concept. REAL wellness is a focus on four dimensions of a positive self-directed wellness philosophy and lifestyle developed around Reason, Exuberance, Athleticism and Liberty. It involves no treatments, services, products or special retreats. These four dimensions form the acronym REAL. The four above dimensions recognized in this acronym modify and signal the nature of this life-enriching, conscious personal commitment to advanced states of mental and physical wellbeing.

There is a qualitative difference between REAL wellness and the rancid stew of ingredients served to the public as a global wellness economy. The difference is akin to the contrast between the terms prevention and promotion. Consider the following proposition: If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, then a pound of REAL wellness is worth a ton of prevention. While it is better to invest in the prevention of illness in order to avoid the future costs and suffering of treatments, it is better yet to promote lifestyles that increase health and wellbeing, thus enabling thriving and flourishing in the present.

Lost in the juxtaposition of next-to-everything under the sun into the word wellness is the personal agency that Dr. Halbert L. Dunn placed in his concept for positive living. His definition of High Level Wellness, namely, a condition of change in which the individual moves forward, climbing toward a higher potential of functioning, does not fit with a market value at all, let alone one of $4.6 trillion.

THE MEANING OF LIFE (MOL)

A major element of the dimension Exuberance is meaning and purpose. As suggested by the masthead above, I don't find any credibility in a universal meaning of life applicable to all. I don't think we are part of a god's divine scheme. Life is random--it's almost all pure chance. Historically, most people did not have the luxury to spend much or any time pondering the MOL. Life in the distant past, and still today for most, consists of a struggle to get needs met in order to survive as long as possible. This is rarely very long. As Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) famously noted in Leviathan, without government, life would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Actually, with or without government, that's the situation for most, then and now.

Under such conditions, ideas about the MOL have rarely amounted to much, as religions have dominated the meaning question with gospels, dogma,

commandments and the like, wrapped in pomp and circumstance and administered by priests and pontiffs. On offer were simple explanations and short, snappy and ominous instructions that amount to this: God made you and you're here to love and obey Him and if you do so you will live again after death, happier than you can imagine, forevermore, in heaven. But, if you don't, you will burn in hideous pain forever and ever in the roaring flames of hell.

NOTABLE RUMINATIONS ABOUT THE MOL & Mx

The following quotations represent a substantial variety of ideas for choosing meanings and purposes for your life. I believe all the viewpoints put forth are,

without exception, superior to ecclesiastical teachings that restrict the meaning of our being here on Earth to a single MOL applicable to all humanity. The latter, in case you haven't wanted to think about it lately, is this: We are all, without exception, subjects of a supreme being--and we share a single purpose. That purpose is to serve, obey and love an invisible supernatural being until death, after which we will enjoy a beyond-orgasmic eternity of happiness, or an equally long eternity of ghastly, unrelenting, dreadfully appalling torture beyond the power of words to describe, though Hieronymus Bosch did have a go at it with his paint brushes.

Hieronymus Bosch, Hell

To have a great purpose to work for, a purpose larger than ourselves, is one of the secrets for making life significant, for then the meaning and worth of the individual overflow his personal borders and survive his death. Shall we give up the quest? Not at all. Now let us face the matter for ourselves. Will Durant

I never felt inclined to take either religion or alcohol in the hope of drowning sorrow. Vilhjalmur Stefansson

The inevitable conclusion is that all life is futile and all human endeavor worse than useless. Jawaharlal Nehru

The purpose of life is to make others happy and enjoy oneself doing it. Katherine Tait

If I have enough paint, a large studio, good light, then I am so happy in the activity of painting that I do not care what the astronomers predict, biologists declare, or what love is said to be or what has happened to religion. I am sure that I am hatefully selfish. Helen Wills Moody

There are no answers because the universe never asked a question in the first place. Andrew Hozier-Byrne

Human life has no hidden meaning in the nature of things. There is no discoverable divine purpose in the womb of nature--no ultimate salvation. Life only presents opportunities for us to realize. The meanings that we untap in life are those that we create, the dreams, plans and projects that we live for. Paul Kurtz

As far as I can tell, life has no special or intrinsic meaning or purpose. We are merely here because we are here, and I doubt very much whether the Universe cares whether whether we here or not, or will either cheer or mourn our eventual demise. Each of us humans makes his or her purpose in life. Albert Ellis.
Life is a perpetual struggle against all forms of enslavement--physical, emotional and intellectual. James Oakes

I doubt that there is one meaning, except for those who are shielded by a metaphysical arch or, more exactly, an arch of faith. For those of us who haven't such protection, I suspect all we can do is find a working answer for ourselves. C.P. Snow

I am so busy as to be convinced that life has no meaning whatsoever. Bertrand Russell

How the devil do I know? Has the question (What is the MOL?) any meaning? George Bernard Shaw

There is no knowable limit to what this trousered ape will do with his multiplying discoveries; doubtless he will some day throw his engines around the stars, and deport his criminals to Betelgeuse. If you insist upon dying, undertake tasks of some danger and use--risk yourself in medical or mechanical experiment and thus give some added significance to your life and death. But, whatever you do, don't die of philosophy. Will Durant, Letters to a Suicide, 1931.

SUPPORTIVE REAL WELLNESS PERSPECTIVES FOR

PERSONALIZING YOUR OWN MOL

There exists an abundance of possibilities rich in personal meaning. Consider immersion in a passion, such as art, music, science, literature, philosophy, peace, philanthropy, pleasures, poetry, sports, justice, truth or pickleball. (Other possibilities should not be overlooked.)
Within a framework of a REAL wellness philosophy and lifestyle, a MOL might be to pursue an admirable life while bearing with fortitude the darkest of days.
A continuous search for the MOL is better than a final discovery, as revelations the next day, month or year may turn out to be more appealing.
Look for meaning in what inspires and energies, provides consolations and joys, or wherever your treasures are found.
Consider the likelihood that enduring and valued beliefs are often those that grew from an apprenticeship of doubt.
Question and dismiss the jejune claim that without faith in immortality and hope of heaven, doubt and despair will follow. Pure poppycock. It's quite possible to be pessimistic about the world yet tolerably cheerful about life.
To engage and harmonize with the beauty of nature.
Life is worth what one is willing to make it worth; so much depends upon the confidence one has in the soundness of her or his philosophy.
To paraphrase my childhood copy of the Catholic Catechism, the one true, holy and apostolic MOL is not laid out in the Four Marks of the Church in the Nicene Creed--nor will it ever be revealed or discovered. However, your own MOL can be invented, modified and acted upon.
To add perspective to the MOL question, you might ask, What is the MOL for dogs, cats, dinosaurs, fish, birds, flowers, etc? Like most humans, they probably don't think about it very much (i. e., never); like humans, they would not discover any definitive answers if they did.
The meaning of each life, whether or not we think about it, changes as we live and learn. For best results, observe, investigate, experiment and demonstrate.

Stephen Jay Gould, 1941--2002

American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, author

and science historian

ABOUT THE MOL & Mx

I saved the last section for my long-time favorite commentary on the MOL

In what he termed a Panglossian Paradigm, Gould compared the accidentally arising features of living things to spandrels, an incidental feature of Gothic architecture created to connect larger and more essential structural elements. He compared extreme selectionist views to those of the fatuous philosopher Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire’s novel Candide. Controversy over the issues raised by Gould’s essay continues to this day.

Source: Academy of Achievement.

STEPHEN J. GOULD

The human species has inhabited this planet for only 250,000 years or so-roughly 0.0015 percent of the history of life, the last inch of the cosmic mile. The world fared perfectly well without us for all but the last moment of earthly time–and this fact makes our appearance look more like an accidental afterthought than the culmination of a prefigured plan.

Moreover, the pathways that have led to our evolution are quirky, improbable, unrepeatable and utterly unpredictable. Human evolution is not random; it makes sense and can be explained after the fact. But wind back life’s tape to the dawn of time and let it play again–and you will never get humans a second time.

We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a ‘higher’ answer — but none exists. This explanation, though superficially troubling, if not terrifying, is ultimately liberating and exhilarating. We cannot read the meaning of life passively in the facts of nature. We must construct these answers ourselves — from our own wisdom and ethical sense. There is no other way.

Source: Friend, David and the Editors of LIFE, The Meaning of Life: Reflections in Words and Pictures on Why We Are Here, Little Brown and Company, Boston, 1991, p.33.

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