Having a WHY to Live

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl- This is truly a book worth reading. Frankl is a psychiatrist who survived but lost his wife and children in the holocaust. First part of the book he described the mental state and processes of the prisoners in the Nazi Concentration Camps, what kept them going and how characters changed under such severe physical and mental stress, suffering, and constant danger.

In second part of the book, he described his very own approach towards modern existential analysis which he called logotherapy. Basically it is a "meaning" centred psychotherapy helping the patient understands the meaning in his existence which will keep him going. I won't attempt to describe the book in a couple of paragraphs but would really like to pull out some excerpt which I find worthy.

Fankl frequently mentioned a quote from Nietzsche :" He who has a WHY to live for can bear almost any HOW " He observed that amongst the prisoners, those who found a reason to stay alive often survived, be it for a loved one who might be waiting, an unfinished piece of work or just the challenge of suffering proudly.

Frankl also expounded that in modern man, existential vacuum ( the feeling of void and emptiness within) often results in neurosis. Existential vacuum manifests itself in Boredom. As an example, he cited "Sunday neurosis", a kind of depression which afflicts people who feels the void when freed from the rush and rountine of the work day. In addition to mask this emptiness, the will to Meaning is often substituted with the will to Power or the will to Money, ie, taken over by the will to Pleasure.

Frankl described how he helped his fellow prisoners with this advice " We had to teach the despairing men that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. "

Not only is the meaning of life unique to each individual it changes all the time. He used a very good analogy that asking the question "What is the meaning of life?" is like asking a Chess grandmaster how to win the game. There is no universal answer. However Frankl believed we can usually discover our own meaning through 3 different ways:
1) creating a work or doing a deed
2) experiencing something or encountering someone ( like experiencing love, goodness, truth or beauty as in nature or art )
3) attitude we take towards unavoidable sufferings, for example that suffering has a meaning

" For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment. "

" What is to give light must endure burning. "

Viktor E. Frankl