:: Man’s Search for Meaning
One of the early features on the neverendinglist was ‘Book Club’; the intention being to share the pages of paper that engaged my mind with transformational text. It was a feature that never really gained any traction after the first instalment, not because I don’t read, but maybe due to how I read!
The problem I have with books is that I often get distracted and end up drifting away in a different direction aboard a steam train of thought. This very point being demonstrated recently when curiosity prompted me to input ‘neverendinglist’ into an anagram solver for no real or apparent reason! Featuring 13,931,241 possible outcomes I suppose I expected the unexpected from this online tool, alas I was greeted with the singular output of ‘dienstverlening’. Not a word I was familiar with in all honesty, but in the same way that Arnoldo Jerkin was brought into the world I had the need to dig deeper rather than simply archive this random fact and move on. Temptation got the better of me and I couldn’t help but hit the prompt to ‘view in Wiktionary’. And the etymology of the result? Of course it was ‘undefined’, being defined I guess quite literally as that not having a meaning and thus not assigned an interpretation. Why you might be asking do I say this? Well in a very roundabout way it provides the definition of the meaning behind the neverendinglist.
A few years back I was a little bit lost and wandering in a wilderness wondering which way to go. In the absence of a purpose the neverendinglist was conceived as a distraction from the day to day duties. In reality it has become a lot lot more. I’m not a religious man however I can understand the anchor that a faith can offer against the ebb and flow of the tides of life. The definition of faith doesn’t necessitate a godly goal, but instead a strong belief, and in this instance a belief in self. It wasn’t just a belief in self that was required on this occasion, rather a purpose for self, which the list has in a periphrastic manner initiated.
A lesson in life, not quite, but perhaps obscurely, the neverendinglist provides a nice little accompaniment on the journey of discovery in one man’s search for meaning. Oh and by the way, in Colombo “just one more thing before I go” style, ‘dienstverlening’ it appears does have a definition* and that is if my Dutch doesn’t mistake make me ‘something special’! I probably knew the answer before I pondered the question.
Right, so I suppose I need to both commence and conclude book review number 2. Written by Victor Frankl there is not a lot else to say than perhaps it provides the explicit definition of a search for meaning by outlining the very significance of the art of living. Make sure you read it!
Book Club is now up and running again and I’m always keen to hear any recommendations. The next book on order is Black Box Thinking with a review to follow at some point assuming I don’t get distracted!
*as provided by vocabulary.com
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