Recently, I have had the opportunity to work my way again through Viktor Frankl’s famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl was a psychotherapist, but more importantly, he was a Nazi concentration camp survivor. He spent some time in Auschwitz, one of the better-known camps. When Frankl went to the camp, there would have been little reason to hope he might come out alive. His book represents a journal of sorts, which he later publishes in 1946 in German.
Frankl lived in Vienna until his death in 1997. I never even came close to meeting him, but certainly he would be one of the figures in history I would love to have met. We are fortunate to have these memories and for them to inform the kind of psychological work he did for another fifty years after walking away from that horrific experience. For a book published that long ago, it has remarkable relevance to people living in our own days. So it is worth taking a look at some of his ideas.
Early on in the book, Frankl talks about the first phase of coming into a concentration camp. Shock is the word he uses. I won’t even say I have a clue what that might be like. Perhaps being locked up in a federal prison comes close, I don’t know. Especially if you go in for the rest of your life, that comes closer. But even those prisoners still have some sense of knowing what’s in store. For Frankl and his comrades, they would not know from day to day whether they would even live. In that spirit Frankl comments, “once lost, the will to live seldom returned.” (8)
It probably is not surprising I want to talk about meaning. To that end, I begin with an observation Frankl makes about meaninglessness. He notes that “people have enough to live but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning.” (140) In this sense meaning is not inherently tied up with any kind of material things---food, money or otherwise. Especially for most of us with enough, we should learn this does not guarantee a meaningful life. If we have nothing to live for, then we are doomed.
That’s the trick or key, if you will. Find something to live for. This goes best if that for which you live is actually beyond yourself. You do it for your kids or for the good of the world. It suggests to me that meaning may well be trans-personal, that is, beyond selfish stuff. If we can hook our will to live to something or someone else, we have the best chance to find meaning---regardless of our means.
Frankl begins to get at this when he tells us, “I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche.” (110) I believe he is confirming what was just said. Meaning is trans-personal. It is not inherent in our soul or psyche. It is discovered “out there,” to be found in another person, a cause or the like. It leads me to think that we have a choice in what we find meaning. And it also suggests that what I find meaningful, you may or may not find it meaningful, too.
I was struck by another comment from Frankl. He declares that “the meaning of life always changes, but that it never ceases to be.” I wonder if people generally think that meaning changes---always changes? I suspect that many of us figure “you either have meaning or you don’t.” And we may well think there is only one meaning for each of us. We either discover it or unluckily, we don’t. I probably held this view once upon a time. As I think back to my younger days, I do believe that is what the culture either told me or implied it.
This leads to another sentence that caught my attention. It hinges on the question how we might discover our meaning. Frankly offers this thought: “Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for own his life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.” When I think about it, I appreciate the fact that life questions me. I probably have seen it the other way around.
Life questions each of us. It is as if life asks, “so here’s the deal; what are you going to make of it?” Our job, according to Frankl, is to respond. And to make meaning is to respond responsibly. For me personally, this has to be with the things I have written about virtue. For example, responsible living is loving, being just, etc. This requires a level of awareness that we are not the only creature on earth. And we share this planet with a lot of other folks.
Living responsibly means doing things non-selfishly. It means much of the things Jesus and other religious figures have taught us. Go the second mile. Don’t kill each other. Things like that. It probably has implications for global warming and care for our world. No doubt, it makes a big deal out of sharing and caring.
I appreciate Frankl waking me again to consider meaning. I would assume all of us want our lives to be meaningful. He offers some good ideas.
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