Man’s Search For Meaning

A prominent psychiatrist in pre-World War II Vienna, Doctor Frankl found himself suddenly stripped of all money, possessions, position, respect, and ultimately, his family — including his pregnant and beloved wife. After confinement in some of the smaller concentration camps, he ultimately arrived at Auschwitz — the lowest circle of the man-made Hell that was the system of concentration and extermination camps.

So, these are the words of a Holocaust survivor that proclaim — suffering is futile, and avoiding suffering is futile. It’s a part of life, and one that is bound to follow you around. Avoiding suffering is like closing your eyes to cross the road. Yes, a car might not hit you either way, but I’d still rather prefer to do it with my eyes open.

But if we cannot avoid suffering, what can we do? Well, we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl’s theory — known as logotherapy — holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful. Whereas Freudian psychoanalysis focuses on the “will to pleasure” and Adlerian psychology focuses on the “will to power” it can be said that Frankl’s logotherapy focuses on the “will to meaning.”

So, does man give in to to conditions or stand up to them? Well, it would be undoubtedly easier to give in to a life of nihilism, bitterness and despair. Life is much simpler when you render all things useless, but in essence that is meaningless. It serves no purpose.

“An active life serves the purpose of giving man the opportunity to realize values in creative life, while a passive life of enjoyment affords him the opportunity to obtain fulfillment in experiencing beauty, art, or nature. But there is also a purpose in that life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man’s attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces.”