Viktor Frankl and life’s lessons
In his 1946 book, Man’s Search for Meaning, neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl recounts his experiences during World War II as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps. Through this work, he describes life’s primary quest and his existential analysis of the meaning of life. In this post, we will review a few of the key ideas that we took from Frankl’s work. While this is a detour from our usual posts, I found his ideas interesting and helpful for understanding our own motivations, purpose and opportunities in life.
Search for meaning
“Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.”
Viktor E. Frankl
Frankl believes that life’s primary motivation is a quest for meaning. He believes it is not a quest for pleasure or power, as Sigmund Freud or Alfred Adler would suggest. Put in other words, life involves fulfilling a meaning. Frankl believes it is not a pursuit to satisfy our drives and instincts; to reconcile conflicts between our id, ego and superego; or as a result of our adaptation to society and the environment.
Responsibility to meaning
Frankl suggests that there are three sources of meaning:
- Undertaking work or deeds;
- Experiencing something or someone; and
- Courage or attitudes taken during difficult times;
The author suggests that life involves taking responsibility to find our own answers to these problems and to meet the tasks of our individual circumstance. Since these tasks will differ between individuals and in time, we cannot generalise the meaning of life.
Suffering and meaning
Like fate and death, suffering is a part of life. If life is to have meaning, then there must be meaning to suffering. Frankl argues that the emotion of suffering will cease as suffering if we are able to develop an understanding of it. For the person who is suffering, his or her unique opportunity is defined in the way he or she feels and responds to its burden. No one else can relieve their suffering or take their place – it is a unique task for that single individual. As Nietzsche once said, “he who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how”.
Existential frustration
For some, our will to find meaning may lead to existential frustration. It describes our efforts to derive meaning in our own personal existence. Frankl believes that this internal conflict is not necessarily neurotic.
Our degrees of freedom
Some believe that humanity is an accidental or deterministic product of our biological, psychological and sociological nature – akin to a clockwork universe. By contrast, Frankl argues that the human freedom to choose one’s attitude within their circumstance implies that we have some opportunity to escape or influence our surroundings. While we cannot control many events and circumstances of life, we have some freedom to choose how we feel and respond. Frankl believes that individuals are self-determining within the confines of our endowment and environment.
Goals and tension
Frankl sees mental health as the degree of tension between what an individual has achieved and should achieve (or know to achieve). He believes that the concept of a tensionless state should not be our desire or motivation. Instead, Frankl argues that we should strive for a worthwhile goal that is unique to us.
Similarly, he believes individuals that live with existential frustrations, left unchecked, may overcompensate with their will to power or pleasure. He describes how such existential vacuums, like the feeling of emptiness or meaningless, is sometimes expressed in the form of addiction, aggression and/or depression.
It is normal and healthy if we can channel our existential frustration (or crisis) into growth and development. As importantly, it is incorrect to assume that people should be happy, and that unhappiness is a signal of maladjustment. Furthermore, such value systems can increase unhappiness if people become more unhappy about being unhappy. If there is no meaning for survival or suffering, then there may be no meaning to living either.
Paradoxical intention
Frankl observed two challenges in the pursuit of life, meaning and desires: (1) fear can bring about what one is afraid of; and (2) hyper-intention can make what one so deeply desires impossible. For example, the young professional who wants to impress management in his/her next meeting, stresses out about it in anticipation and performs more poorly as a consequence.
For these reasons, Frankl believes that we should not live purely for the pursuit of success or happiness. The paradox of intent means the more we make it the target, the more likely we are to miss it. Rather, happiness and success should be an unintended side-effect or by-product of one’s dedication to a cause, whether it is work, love or something else altogether.
Frankl believes that paradoxical intention can help some people to grapple with hyper-intention and anticipatory anxiety. However, this does require a shift in attitudes and goals. For example, people who disdain public speaking may find some success by first sharing their fears with their audience.
Essence of existence
“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 act now”.
Viktor E. Frankl
Frankl emphasises the importance of taking our own responsibility for the interpretation of meaning of one’s own life. We should recognise the finiteness and finality of life and consider our responsibility to society and/or our own conscience. Frankl notes that our transitoriness does not diminish the meaning of existence. However, our freedom and meaning is at risk of arbitrariness if we live without responsibleness.
The author ponders whether animals in drug research centres can understand the purpose of their suffering. We can ask the same of ourselves, at this stage of our evolution and place in the cosmos, and whether there remains some super-meaning to human existence and suffering. Unfortunately, Frankl believes it likely that such answers to meaning exceed the limitations of our intellectual capacity.
Tragic optimism
Tragic optimism is the idea that one can remain optimistic in the presence of pain, guilt and death. This optimism in the event of tragedy comes from our potential to translate suffering into accomplishment, turn guilt into an opportunity for improvement, and use death as an incentive for responsible action. Like happiness, love, faith and laughter, optimism cannot be ordered or sought through hyper intention. According to Frankl, it is a by-product of our will to meaning.
Finding meaning
Frankl concludes that we are more likely to find meaning to life through discovery in the world than in the revelations of one’s own mind. Stephen Hawking had shared a similar observation, rejecting discovery and learning through one’s own mind alone. Likewise, we may find meaning by studying the lives of people who have and have not found their own answers to life. Hence, our personal discovery and journey can benefit from both a biographical and biological approach.
Reference
Frankl, V. (1947). Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy. More at <https://www.ted.com/speakers/viktor_e_frankl>