Hunt For Meaning and Purpose

• August 7, 2020

By Mary Ann Faremouth,

The Fifth Step of the Faremouth Method is “Be a Hunter.”  I truly believe there are times in our lives when we try desperately to hunt for meaning and purpose of experience, especially at a time when things and events around us don’t make sense.  An experience that might not always have been a pleasant or enjoyable one.  An experience that may have caused us to challenge and sometimes emotional and/or physical pain.  I’ve just had one of those experiences.  At a time when all of us are trying to deal with the challenges of COVID 19, I’m trying to search for the deeper meaning of this experience to be able to come out on the other end with more understanding, growth, and expanded awareness.

It was a Tuesday afternoon.  I was in my 6th-floor office working on job searches that had to be filled in a rather timely manner.  It was raining hard, thundering like the angels may have been playing an aggressive game of bowling in the heavens when all of a sudden I heard a strong booming crackling sound.  The lights in the adjoining office went out and then about 5 minutes later my own office lights went out.  I opened the door to the darkened hallway and people were scrambling for the stairs, frantically yelling, “FIRE!” – there is a FIRE in the building!  We need to get out FAST!”  The hot flames of fire outside the window shot up faster than a trio of lightning bolts as we all raced to the door of the stairwell.  I hurried down the six flights of stairs to the outdoors just as the firetrucks arrived.  The sirens were blaring repeatedly and I felt like I was on the movie set for a thriller in production.

I was told while standing outside with the other tenants of the building that the severe lightning had hit a transformer in the building causing a fire and sending blazing flames everywhere.

I thought to myself, how many times in our lives have we had our own “lightning bolt” hit our own ‘transformer of self” and it caused some kind of fire or flame to ignite within us? Usually, when the metaphorical lightning hits it’s not always a welcomed event but the aftermath of the event often does “transform” some part of the self and light a spark within us.

We always have choices in how we chose to respond to change.   We can resist by kicking and screaming or we can choose to respond in a more constructive way.

When I think of the fear that goes along with a traumatic experience like this, I am reminded of the quote by Cus D’Amato:

“The hero and the coward both feel exactly the same fear, only the hero confronts his fear and converts it to fire.”

Does the fear of this scary event force the hero to light a fire inside himself?   Does the fear spur him to do something significant and allow him to ignite his own passion and tune in to his own creativity in the midst of destruction and transformation? This is a time to dig down deep into our psyche and attach to our courage to go through this transformation and change with determination. This courage is what can separate us from success or failure. We have to own the courage to walk through the flames of fire to invoke that change towards success.

In many ancient teachings throughout the ages, fire was an obvious subject for contemplation.  Wherever there were people, there was fire; whatever change people wrought in the world, they did it with fire.  Fire is fundamental to the world and essential to any process of change.  Fire is clarity.  Fire transformed woodland into garden, clay into pottery, and ore into swords.    As the philosopher, Gaston Bachelard mentioned, “the hearth fire was no doubt for man the first object of reverie, it was certainly an object of inquiry. Around campfires, before hearths and beneath candles people talked, children learned, scholars read, poets sang…….”

Most ancient philosophies credited fire as an element.  Anything emanating heat, light or change (for humans, passion), could be classified under the doctrine of universal fire.  The analogies to life were particularly powerful.

We all have the fire of passion within us and sometimes even a destructive and challenging force like COVID can help us ignite that passion that may have been dormant and force us to TRANSFORM ourselves into a better version of who we are for the new work world.  When we come to that fork in the road, if we choose courage, we ignite our own personal flame in order to become a better version of ourselves.

Passion comes from the heart. Don’t expect anyone else to light the flame for you. That ultimate responsibility is yours. Everyone has to find their own source for their personal flame.  You alone must take responsibility for stoking your own fire.

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.  If the thought of a change in venue for applying your skills and experience makes you uncomfortable, that’s good.  Often, with new and untested territory comes renewed passion.  Embrace the uncomfortable.

To rekindle passion, redefine it.  What motivated you earlier in your career is not necessarily what will motivate you now.  You are not the same person you were before COVID for many reasons.  You are who you are at this very moment and your priorities have changed from earlier times. You must now respond with today’s passions for yourself and how to direct your new personal flame to create that necessary change.

I am happy to report that everyone in my building fire was able to get out of the building safely without harm, but that experience is forever embedded into my memory.  Perhaps the meaning and purpose I gleaned from going through this experience are that we all have our own “personal fires” to be ignited.  Those personal fires are becoming who we are going forward as we pick up that imaginary lightning bolt or torch, ready to exercise our courage to change and transform our new work world with new vision and purpose as we reignite our purpose.