[nickbauman]

I think what Le Guin is expressing tacitly that most of us adopt meaning into our lives. We fall in love. We get religion, we have kids, we are dedicated to our vocations, etc. Creative people create meaning for their lives. This is hard work requiring extreme skepticism and bravery (which ultimately can be very lonely): each idea must pass a battery of psychic litmus tests to be considered valid. It's exhausting. But this sort of way of life is the ultimately most fulfilling, I think. Most purposeful. Note: I don't really do this my own life, I feel like I have too many adopted meanings in my life that crowd out this process and lack the fundamental courage to really do this.

[codemac]

I really like a recent thing I read about adult development from Robert Kegan. These go in order in his model, and these are kind of adult development levels to "achieve".. which of course itself leads to a discussion of Kegan's work, but here are the interesting ones for adults:

- socialization - your identity is based on your social context, and the society around you

- self-authored - your identity is based on what you've carved out for yourself, and you are in control of it outside of your social constructs.

- self-transformation - your identity is not your own! You see identity as something as movable and constructed as many other objects in your life.

[TeMPOraL]

I feel like going through those "levels" in reverse, increasingly being pushed from "self-authored" by to "socialization", through the usual pressure to conform to what everyone else is doing. It's annoying, to say the least.

[ssivark]

Could you elaborate on the difference between adopted and created meaning? Are these terms that you created, or adopted? :-)

[nickbauman]

Someone who creates meaning for their lives doesn't simply adopt common meanings. They observe their place in the world by removing themselves from their historical prejudices and local attachments to judge the people within a given situation based on the degree of their humane commitment.

Of course it's impossible to do that completely because nobody can fully divorce themselves from their own prejudices and attachments. So it's a struggle.

On the other hand, most people lean into their prejudices and attachments. Many others are even unaware of them. They just adopt what they see others doing. So, if your friends like white supremacy, you will too. Or, to hit closer to home, haha, if your friends like ruby-on-rails, you will too ;)