Living a Purposeful Life. Kalman J. Kaplan
the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
Paul Revere’s career and reputation were somewhat tarnished in the latter part of the war,25 but he went back to his family business, and broadened his metalworking to include a bell foundry in 1792. He helped provide a replacement bell for his congregation to which he belonged, the New Brick Church in Boston. Between 1792 and his death in 1818, Revere’s company—Revere and Son—made more than one hundred bells.
The difference in these two legends is very much the point of this book. We must ask again, why did the Greek Pheidippides push himself beyond his endurance to be the first to announce the Greek victory over the Persians? Why did he need to be the first to announce this news? Did this act which led to his death really have any obvious instrumental value? The Greeks had won. What secondary gain did Pheidippides derive from this action that led him to so overtax himself that he collapsed and died? Why did he run rather than ride a horse? Finally, were Pheidippides’ actions indicative of an ancient Greek way of looking at the world and indeed of constructing meaning? Seemingly, for the ancient Greeks, nothing could be nobler than dying after performing a heroic deed for one’s country. But was this really what was going on? Why did Browning romanticize Pheidippides’ fatal run?
Contrast this to the story of Paul Revere, who had a much more pressing message to transmit. He needed to warn the revolutionary militia that “the British were coming.” Yet Paul Revere did not seem to be looking to be a hero. He was living within himself, simply doing his job, and afterwards seemed quite content to go back to his own life. This is where the biblical Paul Revere seemed to find his purpose. He lived within himself and did not need to search for meaning in exaggerated activities. In contrast, the ancient Greek Pheidippides extended himself beyond his endurance, collapsed and died. Was this difference incidental, or was it indicative of the difference in the different ways classical Greeks and biblical Jews understood purpose and meaning?—two terms which are often used interchangeably, but which we will are argue are quite distinct live motives.
This is not to say that we all don’t want to lead fulfilling lives and to leave some mark or legacy after we pass from this earth, indeed have some sort of purpose. But people without an inner sense of purpose seem to often choose very dangerous and even destructive activities in their attempt to find meaning. This search for the heroic may well shorten their lives or leave them injured badly, either physically or spiritually, or both.
1. Camus, Stranger.
2. Camus, Myth of Sisyphus.
3. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning.
4. May, Existential Psychology, 41–42.
5. The reader is referred to an excellent book by Vincent Bugliosi, lead prosecutor in the Tate–LaBianca murder trial, to explain the series of murders committed by the Manson Family. Bugliosi described his theory at trial and in his 1974 book, Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders.
6. Warren, Purpose Driven Life.
7. Warren, Choose Joy.
8. De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 394.
9. Exod 19:6.
10. Exod 19:8.
11. Exod 24:3.
12. Exod 24:3.
13. Kaplan and Schwartz, Psychology of Hope, xiii.
14. Shestov, Athens and Jerusalem, 85–86, 91–92.
15. Kaplan and Cantz, Biblical Psychotherapy.
16. Fredericson and Misra, “Epidemiology and Aetiology of Marathon Running Injuries.”
17. Marti et al., “On the Epidemiology of Running Injuries.”
18. Macera et al., “Postrace Morbidity among Runners.”
19. Saragiotto et al., “What Are the Main Risk Factors?”
20. Nathan, “Injury Prevention in Marathon Runners.”
21. Herodotus, Histories, vol. 3; Larcher, Notes on Herodotus.
22. Browning, Pheidippides.
23. A version of the story suggests that this knowledge may have allowed the Athenian army to march to the beaches on the west side of the city and prevent a second Persian attack.
24. Slater, Glory of Hera, 4.
25. Specifically, Paul Revere was charged with insubordination for his actions during the Penobscot Expedition, a chaotic naval operation that cost the Continental forces hundreds of lives in 1779. Revere was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing, but any career in the military was permanently blocked.
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Two Views of Creation
No people seemed to search more for meaning in their lives than did the ancient and classical Greeks. In his superb book The Glory of Hera: Greek Mythology and the Greek Family, Phillip Slater tells us much of interest about the ancient Greeks. They were as creative a people as have ever lived and seemed to search for meaning in everything they did. They were not content with living simple lives but oftentimes took on gargantuan tasks which resulted in a great deal of upheaval and unpleasantness, and oftentimes to disaster. Slater puts it this way: “The Greeks were quarrelsome as friends, treacherous as