The Manifestation of Meaning: A Thesis on Meaning Making and Veterans
Abstract
In the present study, we sought to examine how military personnel make meaning out of their
military vs. civilian life experiences, and the degree to which meaning violation impacts their
efforts. Veterans anonymously engaged in writing reflective essays, one about a military-related
negative life experience, and one relating to a civilian-related negative life experience, and
completed the Global Meaning Violation Scale (Park, 2016) for each experience. We also coded
for generic you (i.e. ‘you’ used generally, instead of regarding a specific individual) as this is an
indication of meaning-making. Although our results revealed no significant difference in generic
you usage depending on the condition, and no significant correlations were found between
meaning violation and generic you, active duty military personnel were much less likely to use
generic-you than inactive, a category comprised of reservists/national guard, those who served in
both active duty and the reserves/national guard, and other, suggesting an impact on meaning
making from military status.
Dear Reader,
To say that this thesis is the culmination of a year’s worth of work is only partly true. The time I spent reading journal articles, constructing outlines, designing and conducting the experiment, all took place in the span of a year. But my obsession with the research topic, meaning, began many years before that, perhaps even as far back as my adolescence. However, one needs to begin somewhere so I’ll start this story just before I entered the Marine Corps.
During that time, I began to feel, to believe deeply with religious conviction, that I was meant to be a Marine. It was my God given calling, and all the prayers I uttered with the utmost sincerity were answered by God’s voice in the form music on my heartstrings.
Not long after I joined, I began to doubt this conviction. As my time with my unit continued, which I can now say without the welling of frustration but the clear voice afforded by honest observation, was toxic, my conviction dissolved. I was left with the realization that not only had many things happened in my life that seemed antithetical to my beliefs, but my belief in something, no matter how sincere, did not determine whether or not that thing was true.
God became a lie, and my foundation crumbled.
While going into the exact situations that lead me to this conclusion are not necessary here, the consequences are worth noting. I then fell into a years long depression, which forced me to reevaluate how I was living. In doing so, I was drawn to those thinkers who seriously considered the meaning of life; Albert Camus, Viktor Frankl, and Jordan Peterson, to name a few. Their work permeates mine, and this thesis is a reflection, or distillation of the most difficult chapter in my life to date.
With that, this thesis seems to me to be the closing page on that chapter. While every quality novel relies on its beginning chapters for a clear and coherent story, and my story will certainly build on these early chapters, I can move forward without reservation.
I hope you find this small work worthwhile. Enjoy.
In today's podcast, we celebrate the completion of Joe's thesis. As returning listeners to the podcast, you will be familiar with Joe’s work over the past year, The Manifestation of Meaning: A Thesis on Meaning Making and Veterans.
In this conversation, we get to unpack all of the research Joe's been working on. As you'll hear from both me and Jordan’s reactions, it's a really interesting topic.
Having a platform that allows my friend to be able to share the things that he's been pouring himself into the last year, and to give his thesis a home in which it can exist outside of the academic world, is a really special thing for me. And so this is co-release with the thesis itself so you can read it on the website and listen to this long-form podcast. This is hopefully a bit more accessible and not as in-the-weeds, in the technical sense, as the actual thesis itself. However, I highly recommend you listen and read the thesis if you're really interested in the topic of meaning-making. Joe pulls on a lot of threads from experts, both current and past. With that, please enjoy this conversation with Joe Jackowski, Jordan Criss and myself, Erich Wenzel.
