Using ritual to find meaning
Rituals make transitions easier to process.
Jean-Paul Sartre says that we humans don’t come with any predefined meaning or purpose. We have to find it for ourselves. I find meaning in relationships — family and friends — and in leaving the world a little better than how I found it. I don’t find meaning in racking up more months or years on the calendar.
Sartre also says that once we have found meaning in our lives, we are required to make choices to realise that meaning. Most people go through life without ever questioning its meaning and rather than making choices of their own, they accept whatever option that society, convention or family obligation puts in front of them. To truly live meaningful lives, we must make choices. We are condemned to be free.
It’s a shame that our society puts so little emphasis on finding meaning and making choices. I expect that more people would lead fulfilling lives if they knew that there are more options available than the school-university-marriage-mortgage-children treadmill that conventional society puts us on.
Using ritual to find meaning
This is my first exposure to Chinese philosophy, so forgive me if I am misrepresenting anything.
An article I read recently in Aeon magazine contrasts the hide-bound rituals of Confucianism with the relative freedom proposed by another Chinese philosopher, Zhuangzi.
Confucius recommends a series of rituals to make transitions — like marriage, business arrangements, and political decisions — easier to process. Rituals also help ease the pain of loss when someone dies. By contrast, Zhuangzi proposes a more free-wheeling approach to life.
Zhuangzi shares a fable to illustrate the limited worldview of someone who knows only ritual.
There is a well-known story in the Zhuangzi, the ‘Fable of a Frog in the Well’. It is a conversation between a well frog and a sea turtle. The frog brags about its own comfortable abode and way of life in a caved-in well to a visiting sea turtle. When the turtle describes for the frog what the sea is like, the frog is completely dumbfounded, not knowing what to make of the turtle’s description. This is a tale about the limited world of the well for the frog in contrast with the limitless world of the sea for the turtle.
Most of us live our lives like a frog who can’t imagine a world outside his well.
Zhuangzi goes on to talk about a butcher, Cook Ding, who creates a ritual way of carving an ox that respects both timeless tradition and the particular circumstances of the task in front of him.
Every touch and every move of Cook Ding’s is conducted in perfect rhythm as if he was performing some grand ancient ritual, a highly scripted and constrained occasion. His execution is exquisite and precise, hitting all the right notes, while smoothly cutting open the ox’s body without hacking his way through.
I find comfort in ritual. When I returned to England a few years ago, I was eager to immerse myself in the ancient rituals of my country. From a pint of beer in front of a roaring fire on a wet Sunday afternoon to the glories of Evensong in the soaring space of Bristol Cathedral, I wanted to experience every aspect of Englishness to the full after many years in America. Like Confucious, I believe that rituals make transitions easier to process. For example, the words of the funeral rite in the Book of Common Prayer have brought comfort to untold millions over the centuries.
Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed: we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
But there is a conflict between following rituals and making the choice to live one’s life freely. I expect Sartre would say that rituals are good when they are freely chosen.
Personal rituals can help ease the pain of loss and to remember the person who has died. My daughter and I have created mini-rituals including doing jigsaw puzzles together and drinking cocktails at The Broken Dock.
One day, she will be doing a jigsaw and she will remember me and smile.
☕️ Buy me a coffee? ☕️
It won’t make me rich but it’ll make me happy.
(I promise I won’t spend it on beer!)
The Bible constantly refers to the fact that we have free will and for me that is the very premise of life. We must make choices and experience the consequences of those choices. Life is a spiritual journey. It is why socialism and 'government as God' removing choices is so abhorrent to me. Ritual only has meaning when it is freely adopted. That is what gives you joy in the ritual and what gives ritual meaning. If you were required to do jigsaws and drink cocktails with your daughter, the delight that you both experience, making the choice to do it, is instantly extinguished.
I believe this was your best essay among those of a philosophical bent. "...rituals are good when they are freely chosen" really sums it up well. Simple rituals like making the morning coffee or watching dog videos with my grandsons provide a comfort that is hard to explain. I miss the ethnic family rituals, usually centered around holidays and food, that have slipped away with my more Americanized generation. But, I guess it was a choice, wasn't it? Your frog-turtle fable reminds me of The Ambitious Violet by Khalil Gibran, another story about experiencing life to the fullest. You said a lot in a few words.