Dear Editor, Prof. William Reville asserts that defining meaning in our lives is a precursor to happiness, as he concords with author Emily Esfahani Smith in her book, The Power of Meaning (IC, 12/1/2017).
Taking this approach is to miss the whole point of happiness, that it is the natural state of a human being. Happiness is what Adam and Eve had before the Fall.
The search for meaning arises when we have moved away from the natural state (of happiness) and are struggling to find a new happiness which we sometimes find in a meaning acquired after a search of some kind.
The meaning found is usually a distraction. But it may help to bring a person some happiness. We may then confuse this happiness with the happiness found in our natural state.
In that happiness, meaning is inherent and does not involve searching for it. It is simply there. It is implicit.
My feeling concerning suicide in Ireland is that it is due to a loss of happiness rather than meaning, as Prof. Reville suggests.
It is more likely to be born of depression than to be born of someone’s search for a philosophical answer to their pain.
Yours etc.,
John O’Connell,
Derry, Co. Derry.