Summay/notes on "Man's search for meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl Nietzsche: "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how". The book provide three main "whys", three ways to find a meaning in life (p115): - Experiencing something or someone (Love) - Creating work or a deed - Dignity in suffering, the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering Experience: "The true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche" (p115) You are more human when you forget yourself: by giving yourself to a cause to serve or another person to love. Love: "The salvation of man is through love and in love. In a position of utter desolation, when his only achievement is enduring his suffering in the right (honorable) way, man can achieve fulfillment through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved." Suffering: If the suffering is avoidable: remove its cause, otherwise its masochistic rather than heroic! When we cannot change the situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. Unique human potential: to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph (p116 & 147). "Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice" (p117) "In accepting the challenge of suffering bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment" (p118). Lessing: "There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose" Experience of the camp: Odds of surviving Auschwitz were 1 in 28. "In camp, a small time unit (a day), appeared endless. A larger time unit (a week), seemed to pass very quickly." The author mentions that he managed to succeed in rising over the situation by thinking about the future, thinking of himself giving a lecture on the psychology of concentration camp. He observed his suffering as already part of the past, or as an object of a scientific study. Spinoza: "Emotions, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it." Meaning of life: "It didn't really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us". Life sets tasks to individuals, different from individual to individual and moment to moment. Life is questioning us, and we can only answer to life by answering for his own life, by being responsible. "Stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead think of ourselves as those questioned by life. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. " "The true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche." "The more one forgets himself (to a cause or a person) the more human he is". Responsibilities: We have responsibilities towards people waiting for us, or to an unfinished work. "Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to do now!" Think of a friend/wife alive or dead, looking at you. He would not expect you to disappoint him. He would hope to find us suffering proudly, knowing how to die. # -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Logotherapy in a nutshell # -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Logotherapy focuses on the future, on the meanings to be fulfilled by the patient. It defocuses on the vicious circle formations and feedback mechanisms which play such a great role in the development of neuroses." Thriving to find a meaning is the primary motivation force of a man (and not pleasure or power). 89% of people agree that there is a need for meaning. Existential frustration is not pathological. "A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhile-ness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. " Growth and development is the key to get out of that. The existential vacuum we experience in the 20th century may be explained by the fact that we have to make choices, but no instincts and no traditions can help us. The essence of existence: "Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted as wrongly as you are about to act now." Weisskopf-Joelson: "the idea that people ought to be happy, that unhappiness is a symptom of maladjustement is responsible for the fact that the burden of unavoidable unhappiness is increased by unhappiness about being unhappy." A logodrama: We can understand that monkeys don't know that they are suffering for a greater cause in scientific experiments. Maybe it's the same for humans, not knowing the meaning of their suffering for a greater cause. Life transitoriness(p124): Pessimist: observes with fear and sadness the calendar. "The person who attacks the problems of life actively removes each successive leaf of the calendar and files it neatly with its predecessors, having first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back". He can reflect with pride and joy on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. No reason to envy the young. Instead of possibilities you have realities in your past. Instead of focusing of the transitoriness look at the full granaries of the past that you have harvested: deeds done, loves loved, sufferings gone through with courage and dignity (p151). Logotherapy as a technique (p125): "The wish is father to the thought". "The fear is mother of the event." (fearing something will likely make it happen). Conversely, a forced intention makes impossible what one forcibly wishes. The author suggests to use humor (self-detachment using humor) to fight fear and put oneself at a distance from your own neurosis. Fear of sleeping: well try to stay awake as long as possible. Self determination (as opposed of pan-determining): "Man is capable of changing the world and himself for the better" # -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The case for a tragic optimism # -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The human potential allows for: (1) turning suffering into a human achievement ; (2) derive from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for the better; (3) deriving from life transitoriness and incentive to take responsible action. Maybe life is like a movie, where you can't understand the meaning until the end: "Doesn't the final meaning of life reveal itself on the verge of death? Doesn't this final meaning depend on whether or not the potential meaning of each single situation has been actualized to the best of the respective individual's knowledge and belief?" (p145) The perception of "meaning" is: being aware of what can be done about a given situation. Unrelated: It's not because many killers use knives, that we should stop using knives in our kitchen. Valuable (p152): The authors states that "life remains meaningful under any conditions, and so does the value of each and every person because it is based on the values he has realized in the past and it's not contingent on the usefulness he may or may not retain in the present. Today's society adores people that are successful, happy and young. There is valuable in the sense of usefulness (that's bad the author blames nihilism: everything is meaningless, there is no purpose in the universe), and there is valuable in the sense of dignity.