11. Man's Search For Meaning

“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control everything that happens to you in life, but you can always control what you feel and what you do about what happens to you.”

Introduction

The above quote taken from the book is one that forces you to consider the fact that unpleasant things are bound to happen in the course of one’s life…and while it’s okay that we pray for grace to abound and for nothing to go wrong, more often than not…things do go terribly wrong. Be it in the form of financial struggles, ill health, work crisis, heartbreak, betrayal, abuse or even the death of a loved one.

Now when things do go wrong, what do we do about it? And how quickly are we able to bounce back? Or better still…how able are we to use that wrong situation to an advantage?

 Do we curl up and wait to die? Or do we find hope in that situation despite our suffering?

Are we able to look at such dire situations and ask if there is a lesson in there for us? but even further, fathom how that suffering can be transformed into something beneficial for us and for others.

Tough question I think, but something we all should aspire to.

Let me at this point say that this book was written by a camp survivor from the notorious era of the 2^nd world war, where all kinds of horrors took place in the German (Nazi) concentration camps. (Remember the movie “Escape from Sobibor”). Yeah, that magnitude of suffering.

 It is such an amazing twist but also a plus to this story, that the Author in question who was a Doctor and a Psychiatrist had to go through such hideous conditions himself, thereby having firsthand experience to validate his theories. Why do I say this? Often psychologist get specimen which they use in a ‘laboratory set up’ to draw their conclusions. But in this case the author along with other concentration camp inmates were the specimen under observation.

Background and important insights…

I will try to paint a small picture of the author’s experience Before, During and After his stay in the camp. This is to ensure you have some history, before going into the main take outs from the book. I find that this is the best way to really gain context on the learnings here shared.

VICTOR FRANKL

At the age of 3 knew what he wanted to become in life - “A physician”… and even as a youth frequently wondered about the meaning of life. He would personalise it by asking himself; what the meaning of the coming day was to the society, plus the coming days meaning for him as an individual.

This he said helped him to anticipate the new day and prepare for it accordingly.

He began to study philosophy at the age of 16 by attending adult classes, and during one such class he was asked to give a lecture on the meaning of life. He said “It is we that must answer the questions that life asks of us daily, and to these questions we can respond only by being our authentic selves and by being responsible for our existence. Our answers must consist not of talk and meditation, but of right conduct and actions, we must take the responsibility to find the right answers to life’s problems and fulfill the tasks which it sets for us constantly” This belief became the cornerstone of both his personal and professional identity.

Victor founded Vienna’s 1^st youth counselling programme for difficult young adults, and worked in the suicidal ward of a clinic at the university where he sought to help his patients find life meaningful even in the face of depression and mental illness. At the age of 30, he was heading the department of Neurology in the hospital where he worked. So, he was a successful young man, by all accounts whose success was founded on helping others get better.

At the time the war broke out and was raging fiercely in Europe, he obtained an American visa which would have enabled him escape all the horrors from the war, and move to a life of comfort and affluence, as a renowned professional in his field. However, he chose to stay back in his war torn country to protect his parents who had no other means of escape. And so…the war eventually caught up with him and his family, landing them all in the concentration camps.

Besides the many horrors of the camp and constant threats to his life, he found a way to stay hopeful and to give hope to others who were in the camp with him. And at the end of the war, when he found out that he was the only survivor from his family (he lost his parents & his pregnant wife), he was able to overcome his grief and become a counselor to many who had suffered a similar fate as his.

The big question is...how did he find the strength in the midst of all that pain and suffering to become a beacon of light and a source of hope to others.

I will outline in the quotes below, the more critical philosophies which he held, that not only saw him through the ordeal, but made him an even better & stronger person than he was before his ordeal in the camp. These principles he learned by experiencing and not just by textbook and analysis.

12 Quotes from Mans Search for meaning + my take on them.

1.      Life is not primarily a quest for Comfort, Pleasure or Power… rather it is a quest for meaning! Which once found, fosters the individual’s ability to survive and transcend whatever situation one finds the self in.

2.      There are 3 possible sources for finding meaning, these sources are…

o   Work - Creating something valuable or doing a significant deed (accomplishment)

o   Love - Experiencing something profound or encountering/caring for a person you love (Love here is explained as the ability to love the total human being, plus the ability to recognise the essential traits of this being and help them in actualizing it. Love here could also be for a cause rather than a person)

o   Courage - The attitude we take towards unavoidable suffering (The ability to transform tragedy into triumph, and to turn a predicament into achievement)

3.      A depressed soul can be cured by leading it to again find meaning in life. There is an ultimate purpose to any life here on earth, therefore life remains meaningful despite circumstances. Try to find that meaning. The book suggests that a helpful way to try to regain meaning is to imagine yourself at old age, looking back at all the things you enjoyed accomplishing with your life that made it meaningful. Are they significant things or are they minimal and disappointing?

4.      Don’t aim at success, the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success like happiness must ensue (i.e be an outcome), as the unintended side effect of ones dedication to a cause greater than the self, or as a by-product of ones surrender to a person other than himself.

5.      The truth as proclaimed by so many poets, thinkers and prophets is that LOVE is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. I’ve read somewhere that LOVE alone has the potential to heal the world and restore it back to Eden. I guess that is why even in the bible it is said “but the greatest of these is Love”. We are to constantly find ways to create and give that love in the world for the benefit of one or of all.

6.      Everything can be taken from a man, but one thing - The last of the human’s freedom, which is the ability to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. i.e Mans own attitude to his existence. Be it positive or negative.

7.      He who has a WHY to live for, can bear almost any HOW! Emotion which is rooted in suffering, ceases to be suffering the moment we form a clear and precise picture of the meaning, reason and value behind that situation. I found it very profound to read that in the camp when inmates attempted suicide due to the fact that they had lost hope, the most effective way of getting them back was helping them define a future goal, for which everything they were going through was going to serve as assets to. It was a way of getting them to understand that life still expected something of them in the future.

     For the author – one such goal was for him to imagine the various lectures and classes he was going to give after the war, on the psychology of inmates in the concentration camp.

     For one inmate (a scientist), it was a series of books he had started writing based on his unique knowledge but was yet to complete,

     and for another (a father), it was a child whom he adored and was waiting for him in another country.

      A man who is conscious of the responsibility he bears towards his work, another human being or a cause will never be able to carelessly throw his life away or fritter away time.

8.      No one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them.

9.      Freedom is in danger of degenerating the society, unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. In this age of “freedom of everything”, responsibility towards channeling that freedom correctly is highly required. That is why the statue of liberty on the east coast, should be supported by a statue of responsibility on the west coast.

10.   There is a mass neurosis which plagues this present time, it is the state of “existential vacuum” which manifests itself mainly in a state of BOREDOM, and from that boredom arise many extremes. Fill your days with meaning, lest you become a zombie trapped in the existential vacuum.

11.  We should therefore not be hesitant about challenging man with a potential meaning for him to fulfill, for at any given point in one’s life there is; what one has already achieved & what one still ought to accomplish. Therein lies THE GAP BETWEEN WHAT ONE IS, AND WHAT ONE SHOULD BECOME. And In that gap lies many meanings waiting to be realised and fulfilled. Are you even aware of your own gaps???

            Love this one!

FINALLY…….

12. WHAT MAN ACTUALLY NEEDS IS NOT A TENSIONLESS STATE, BUT RATHER THE STRUGGLING AND STRIVING FOR A WORTHWHILE GOAL, A FREELY CHOSEN TASK! What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but… the call of a potential meaning, waiting to be fulfilled by him.

     

     Love this even more!

There is a meaning, a purpose, waiting to be fulfilled by You! Embrace the call with open arms and be on the look out to fill your life up with meaning.

I hope this was useful, cheers to open minds!