'Man's Search for Meaning' by Viktor E. Frankl

Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Based on his own experience and the stories of his patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. At the heart of his theory, known as logotherapy, is a conviction that the primary human drive is not pleasure but the pursuit of what we find meaningful. Man's Search for Meaning has become one of the most influential books in America; it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living.

MY THOUGHTS: 

This is my choice for the Classic in Translation category of this year's Back to the Classics Challenge. My edition was translated beautifully by Ilse Lasch. It was written in (9 days?) by the Viennese psychotherapist Viktor Frankl shortly after his release from a concentration camp. He'd been a long-term prisoner at Auschwitz and Dachau during World War Two. In a series of revelations and anecdotes, Frankl describes daily life along with the survivor's mindset most likely to last the distance. What makes it such an enduring classic is his conviction that the attitude he formed to pull him through may also be applied to any not-so-extreme lifestyle. 

Prisoners were stripped of all their belongings and possessed nothing but their bare bodies and the breath that passed through them. Comrades were regularly trundled off to the gas chamber, and everyone lived with the knowledge that they might be next. Frankl explains that appearing fit for work was anyone's only hope, so men shaved daily, in an attempt to look as young and pink cheeked as possible while suffering and starving.

He describes the mental torture that went hand in hand with this physical privation. Frankl considers it an inevitable, invasive form of inferiority complex. They'd all fancied themselves to be 'somebody' in their old lives, as we all do. I guess we're all born with the illusion that we're the centre of the world, since we're all the centre of our own world. When you abruptly become a complete nonentity, addressed by your number rather than your name, any delusions of grandeur are shattered. (Frankl's number was 119 104.)

So that was his setting of the scene. It was fascinating to read Frankl's personal testimony about making meaning out of such a degraded life, when it's so easy to empathise with the majority of Frankl's fellow prisoners, who considered their best days were gone forever. 

He suggests the power of imagination coupled with the power of love is unbeatable. Frankl describes how he retreated into mental images of interaction with his wife which the prison staff knew nothing about. He had no idea if she was dead or alive, (and it turns out she was dead) but either way, nothing could touch the strength of his great love, thoughts and image of her. So as any daydreamer can testify, 'the intensification of inner life helps prisoners find a refuge from emptiness.' Yeah!!

In Part 2 of the book, Frankl describes his own theory of Logotherapy, which is written in more of a clinical style geared toward members of his own profession. After trying to wrap my head around it, I managed to distill his three main ways of deriving meaning, with help from the far more engaging Part 1.

1) Creative/Active Way. This describes our opportunities to realise values using our own effort and creative work. So write a book, make a film, start a business or non-profit organisation, join a cause or keep a regular blog.

2) Experiential Way. Frankl says, 'a passive life of enjoyment affords man the opportunity to obtain fulfillment in experiencing beauty, art or nature. (I admit this one appeals to me.) So encounter good people, visit awesome places, or if both are limited, read  great books. 

3) Attitudinal Way. I guess this is the crux of the whole book. It's the path to meaning for those who face unavoidable suffering or circumstances we'd never choose. Although we can't change the condition, we can change our attitude toward it. When we make a firm decision to behave in a specific, stable manner, no matter what life throws at us, we fill our lives with meaning and personal triumph. Best of all, nobody else ever needs to know. 

And that leads to Frankl's great quote.

'Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. To choose one's own way.'

Since I scribbled so many of his brilliant quotes in my scrapbook, I'll finish with a few others. Why bother trying to paraphrase perfection? 

'Most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did the majority of the prisoners.' 

'We had to learn ourselves and furthermore we had to teach the despairing men that it did not matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.'

'We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life, daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation but in right action and in right conduct.'

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