Meaning & Value
Meaning is not assigned by the man — it is discovered, or it is missed. Value operates by the same structure. The man who constructs his own meaning and assigns his own value to what he prefers is operating a closed system that holds together as long as the conditions remain favorable and dissolves when the conditions are removed. The man who has discovered meaning and value that exists outside himself is operating from a different ground. The ground holds when the conditions are removed because the ground is not the conditions.
This page addresses meaning and value as integrated subjects. The two are related — what the man finds meaningful is what he values, and what he values is what he treats as meaningful. The distinction between constructed and discovered, between assigned and received, is foundational to whether the man's meaning and value will hold under the conditions that test them.
Discovered vs. Constructed Meaning
The integrated distinction is between meaning that is discovered and meaning that is constructed.
Constructed meaning is the meaning the man assigns to whatever he prefers. The career he chose is meaningful because he chose it. The accomplishments he pursued are meaningful because he assigned the meaning. The conditions of his life are meaningful because his cognitive system has constructed the meaning around them. The meaning is real to the man. The meaning is also dependent on the conditions remaining in place. When the conditions are removed, the constructed meaning dissolves.
Discovered meaning is the meaning that exists independent of the man's construction. The meaning the man finds rather than the meaning the man assigns. The meaning that has been there before the man arrived to recognize it and that continues to be there regardless of whether the man recognizes it. The meaning is not dependent on the conditions of the man's life. The meaning holds when the conditions are removed because the meaning is not the conditions.
The distinction is operationally significant. The man whose meaning is constructed is positioned for the destabilization when the conditions that supported the construction are removed. The accomplishments that were going to make the life meaningful are not achieved, or are achieved and produce nothing. The relationships that were going to provide the meaning end. The career that was going to be the meaning concludes. The constructed meaning dissolves with the conditions.
The man whose meaning is discovered is grounded in what does not dissolve. The conditions that change do not affect the discovered meaning because the discovered meaning was not in the conditions. The grounding holds. The integrated engagement with the changing conditions continues from the grounding the discovered meaning provides.
The Source of Discovered Meaning
The biblical position is that the source of discovered meaning is the God who created the man and who has assigned the meaning the creation includes.
"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:10) The man is the workmanship. The good works are prepared beforehand. The walking in them is the integrated engagement with the meaning that has been prepared. The meaning is discovered through the engagement rather than constructed by the man.
The position is not abstract. The man who is engaged in the work he was prepared for operates with a different quality than the man who is engaged in the work he constructed. The substance of the engagement differs. The fulfillment differs. The integrated engagement that the discovered work supports differs from the manufactured engagement that the constructed work produces.
The recognition of the source is not automatic. The man can spend years pursuing constructed meaning before recognizing that the construction is not producing the integrated experience the integrated meaning produces. The recognition is sometimes the result of the construction's failure — the achievement that did not produce the expected fulfillment, the conditions that produced no integrated experience despite their alignment with the construction. The failure of the construction is sometimes what opens the man to the discovery.
Personal Values
Personal values are the internal beliefs and feelings the man holds regarding the issues and ideas of his life. They provide the foundation for what the man believes is right versus wrong. They are the what the man stands for.
The values can be malleable and change over time as the man's priorities and life circumstances shift. The values that operated at twenty may not be the values that operate at fifty. The integrated examination of the values across the lifetime is part of the work the integrated engagement requires.
The values are distinct from the core principles. The core principles are the foundational commitments that do not change with the conditions. The values can shift around the principles as the man develops. The integration is the recognition of what is principle and what is value, and the calibrated engagement with each.
The man whose values are unexamined is not necessarily operating from accurate values. The values absorbed from the surrounding culture, the family, or the formation experiences may not be the values the man would have chosen if he had examined them. The examination produces the leverage to integrate the values that survive the examination and to release the values that do not.
The discipline of examining the values is uncomfortable because it requires the recognition of what the man has been operating from without conscious selection. The recognition is also the precondition for the integrated values the conscious selection produces.
What Crisis Reveals
A specific dimension worth distinct examination is what crisis reveals about the man's actual values as distinct from his stated values.
In normal conditions, the man can maintain a long list of values that he treats as approximately equal. The list is what he claims to stand for. The list is comfortable because no condition has yet forced the choice between the values on it.
Under crisis, the list collapses to the two or three values the man will actually protect when he cannot protect everything. Those two or three are the actual values. The others are stated values that the man was claiming without the crisis having tested whether the claim was accurate.
The crisis does not create the actual values. The crisis reveals them. The values were operating beneath the surface throughout. The surface presentation aligned with the stated values. The actual operation aligned with the actual values. The crisis is the condition that exposes the alignment between the surface and the actual that the comfortable conditions had not exposed.
The integrated engagement with this recognition is the willingness to examine the actual values the previous crises have revealed and to deliberately reconfigure the values toward what the integrated life requires. The values that the crises revealed as the actual operating values may or may not be the values the integrated life requires. The reconfiguration is the work the recognition produces.
Worth & Value
The man's relationship to his own worth is part of what the integrated engagement with meaning and value includes.
The biblical recognition of the man's worth is direct. The sparrows were customarily thought of as the smallest of creatures. The penny was one of the least valuable Roman coins. "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows." (Matthew 10:29-31)
The worth of the man is not derived from the man's accomplishments, position, or recognition. It is derived from the conditions of the man's existence as the workmanship of God, fearfully and wonderfully made, created in the image of God. The worth is intrinsic to what the man is rather than dependent on what the man has built or what the broader culture recognizes about him.
The recognition of intrinsic worth is the foundation that the integrated self-respect operates from. The man who is operating from the assumption that his worth is dependent on his accomplishments is positioned for the destabilization when the accomplishments are insufficient or when the conditions remove them. The man who is operating from the recognition of intrinsic worth is grounded regardless.
The recognition of the worth of others is the corollary. The other people the man encounters are also fearfully and wonderfully made, also created in the image of God, also of intrinsic worth that does not depend on what they have built. The recognition produces the integrated engagement with other people that the absence of the recognition would not have produced.
Status, Utility, and Commodity
Three specific frames for value operate across the broader culture and warrant distinct examination.
Status value is the value derived from the position the entity holds in the broader hierarchy. The value is dependent on the recognition of the broader social structure. The status value of any specific entity changes as the broader social structure changes. The status that was significant in one era is not significant in another. The status value is real and is also dependent on the broader conditions that recognize it.
Utility value is the value derived from the function the entity performs. The value is the use the entity is good for. The utility value is real and is dependent on the conditions in which the function is required. The utility that is valuable in one context is not valuable in another. The utility value is real and is also dependent on the contextual conditions.
Commodity value is the value derived from the entity's exchangeability in the market. The value is the price the entity can command. The commodity value is real and is dependent on the supply, demand, and broader market conditions. The commodity value of any specific entity changes as the market conditions change.
The recognition of the three frames is operational. The man who is operating from the assumption that all value is one type is missing the dimensions the other types include. The integrated engagement uses each frame for the dimension the frame fits. The status, utility, and commodity dimensions are part of what value includes — and value is also more than these dimensions, including the intrinsic dimension that the biblical recognition of worth includes.
The Man Grounded in Discovered Meaning and Integrated Values
The man who has built the integrated capacity to operate from discovered meaning and integrated values has built one of the most operationally significant foundations the integrated life requires.
He is grounded in meaning that does not depend on the conditions. The conditions that change do not destabilize the meaning because the meaning was not in the conditions. The grounding holds across the changes the life will continue to produce.
He has examined his values and reconfigured the values that the examination revealed needed reconfiguration. The actual operating values have been brought into alignment with what the integrated life requires. The crisis that would reveal the actual values is not feared because the actual values are what they should be.
He recognizes his own worth as intrinsic to what he is rather than dependent on what he has built. The accomplishments are real and the absence of the accomplishments would not have eliminated the worth. The grounding in intrinsic worth produces the integrated self-respect that the contingent worth could not have produced.
He recognizes the worth of others through the same frame. The other people he engages with are also of intrinsic worth that does not depend on what they have built. The engagement with them is calibrated to the recognition of their worth rather than to the conditions of their position.
He values hard work as part of the integrated life rather than as the burden the integrated life is trying to escape. The work ethic operates as the integrated disposition the developed engagement supports.
This is the practical destination of the work on meaning and value. Not the man whose meaning is the construction that will dissolve when the conditions change. The man whose meaning is the discovery that holds across the conditions, whose values are the integrated configuration the examination produced, and whose recognition of worth — both his own and others' — is grounded in the intrinsic dimension the contingent dimensions cannot reach. The integration is the operational reality. The man who has built it operates differently from the man who has not.
Value Hard Work
A specific application of the integrated values is the value placed on hard work — the strong work ethic that the integrated life expresses.
The value is not the value of work for its own sake. It is the recognition that the integrated life requires the integrated engagement with work that the integrated work ethic supports. The work that produces the contribution. The work that builds the capacity. The work that develops the character. The work that the integrated life consists of.
The work ethic is the disposition the integrated engagement deploys. The willingness to engage with the work that the integrated life requires. The persistence through the conditions that test the engagement. The integrated pride in the diligent effort the work ethic produces.
The value of hard work is also the corrective against the cultural patterns that frame work as the burden the integrated life is trying to escape. The integrated life is not trying to escape work. It is engaging with the work that the integrated life requires. The work is part of what the integrated life consists of. The escape from work is the escape from the integrated life that the work composes.
The integrated work ethic is what the Hard Work page addresses in depth. The principle that connects here: the value placed on hard work is part of the integrated values the developed life operates from.