"Who are you important to? If you passed tomorrow, who would show up at your funeral?"
Source: The Importance of "Mattering" in the Wake of the Pandemic | PsychiatricTimes
Opinion
So having a meaningful life is a kind of popularity contest where the contestant with the most attendees at their funeral wins?
Talk about The Wheel of Fortune!
What an utterly perverse outlook on life. How could any doctor with a view like that help anyone?
To be fair, the author does mention that religion is a factor. But certain aspects of religion do not involve the conventional criteria for "meaning." For some contemplatives, meaning comes from trying their best to do God's will. And that might entail leaving some friends behind or at least keeping them at a prayerful distance.
Psychiatry can be clued out regarding the theological idea of intercession. You tell a shrink that you believe we help each other at a distance and they'll probably check off "magical thinking" on their diagnostic notepad.
I shake my head in disbelief at the narrowness, inadequacy, and lack of integration of so much contemporary psychiatry. And worse, I've seen otherwise smart people parrot its harmful and reductive truth claims—especially if they are down, vulnerable, and not thinking to the fullness of their capacity.
People say religion blinds the masses. What about the scientism (lousy and arrogant science) of so many psychiatric truth claims?
Looks like a double-blind to me.
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