Does life have meaning?
Not long ago, this question was considered a sign of mental instability, a symptom of neurosis. A person who starts questioning the meaning of life is either sick or on the verge of a serious illness, Sigmund Freud said. When the illness is cured, the meaning will reveal itself. A healthy person has goals ahead of them and knows why they live, so questions about the meaning of life are just a sign of inability to cope with life’s difficulties and a defense mechanism.
The first one to oppose such views was Viktor Frankl. He emphasizes the importance of asking about the meaning of life and finding answers to that question. The main message he conveyed throughout his entire professional career was that life always has meaning, and finding that meaning is a fundamental human need and a condition for one’s mental health. The question “Why do I live?” is a natural human question and a characteristic of human nature. No other animal asks it, it belongs only to humans. In one of his texts, Frankl wrote: “Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment.” Viktor Frankl wrote, “I believe that the search for meaning in life is a testament to humanity, rather than a manifestation of mental illness. One does not have to be neurotic to be interested in the question of life’s meaning, but one does have to be a true human being.”
It should be noted that the ideas Frankl promoted through his professional work cannot be limited solely to the fields of psychotherapy and medicine. In modern terms, he spoke about universal ideas and values that have been present throughout history in various philosophical teachings, which have guided individuals in finding meaning in human life and how to achieve it.
Viktor Frankl was born in 1905 into a Jewish family, and even before World War II, he was a renowned physician, neurologist, and psychiatrist, as well as the head of the Vienna Neurological Clinic. Despite this, he was captured and deported to a concentration camp. Over the next three years, until his liberation, he experienced the horrors of Nazism in several camps, including the infamous Auschwitz. After his liberation, he learned that his wife and the rest of his family had perished in the Holocaust. In concentration camps, almost the entire family and numerous friends were killed.
Despite everything he experienced, he did not lose faith in the existence of humanity in people. After leaving the camp, he returned to his medical profession and dedicated his life to helping others. He founded logotherapy, a psychotherapeutic method of treatment through finding meaning, which helps people find meaning in the life situations they find themselves in. Until his death in 1997, he developed his method, wrote books and articles, traveled the world, gave lectures, and deepened the ideas to which he dedicated his life.
His first thoughts about the meaning of life preoccupied him back in high school. At the age of only sixteen, he attended psychology lectures at a popular education institution in Vienna and even gave a lecture on the topic of “The Meaning of Life”. In the camp, observing the behavior of both the guards and the prisoners, he started questioning the motives behind their actions and found confirmation of his beliefs regarding the importance of possessing knowledge about meaning. These questions can be summarized into two. odgovora točna jer je svaka situacija individualna, ali Frankl zaključuje da su ljudi koji su zadržali humanost bili oni koji su pronašli smisao i svrhu u svojim postupcima. Oni su shvatili da je ljubav i briga za druge jedan od najvažnijih aspekata ljudskog postojanja i da je to ono što ih održava kao pojedince. S druge strane, oni koji su se pretvorili u zvijeri nisu imali smisao ili svrhu u svojim životima, te su se fokusirali isključivo na vlastite potrebe i preživljavanje. Frankl naglašava da čovjek uvijek ima slobodu odabrati kako će reagirati na datu situaciju i da unatoč vanjskim okolnostima, čovjek može zadržati svoju ljudskost. and the guards were cruel and not all prisoners were the same, some would steal from others, while others would comfort and encourage others and share their last piece of bread with them. Frankl concludes: man possesses inner freedom and it is only up to him to decide how to act. We are not determined by the circumstances in which we live, but by ourselves.
A person can preserve spiritual freedom, the independence of the mind even in such terrifying conditions of camp life.
Three fundamental ideas
The three fundamental ideas that Frankl advocates are philosophical ideas that determine our attitude towards life, depending on how well we understand and accept them.
1. There is meaning in life – life is not a series of random events and man is not a helpless plaything of fate. There is meaning in life that every person can and should achieve.
2. There is a will to meaning – man’s primal need is to live purposefully, to possess values and ideals for which he feels it is worth living.
3. There is freedom of will – there is always inner freedom with which man can choose his actions. We determine our actions. Nothing conditions us except our own free will, through which we make decisions.
Viktor Emil Frankl (1905 – 1997) – neurologist, psychiatrist, founder of logotherapy and existential analysis.
1. There is a meaning to life
Frankl claims that life always has meaning, and the source of human problems is not the lack of meaning, but rather the inability to see that meaning. It is not visible because the answer to the question of meaning comes from a part of the individual that Frankl calls the “noological dimension,” which is inaccessible to human reflection. The word “noological” is derived from the Greek word “nous,” which translates as the spirit that reaches the spiritual dimension of existence. With this, Frankl continues the ancient Greek division of man into three parts: soma or body, psyche or soul, and nous or spirit. Man is the unity of these three dimensions, and only this trinity completes a person.
Man is the spiritual center around which all psychophysical things gather… the body and soul can form a unity, a psychophysical unity. Oh, but such unity never represents the totality of a human being… The spiritual aspect also belongs to the whole person, and it is their most specific one.
A human being is the spiritual center around which the psychophysical gathers… Body and soul can form a unity, a psychophysical unity, but such unity never represents the entirety of a human being…
There is not only the instinctual unconscious, but also the spiritual unconscious, says Frankl. Just as an animal cannot comprehend the world of humans, so a human cannot comprehend the world of the spirit, but it exists independently of the human’s ability to become aware of it. But then, how do we find answers about the meaning of life if it is in an unattainable spiritual dimension and belongs to the noological part of a human being?
Life is like a movie, Frankl responds, a series of frames that each have their own meaning and significance, but it is difficult to understand the ultimate meaning while the movie is playing. We can fully understand it only at the end, when we connect all the frames into a meaningful unity. The same goes for life. Each individual and life situation has its own meaning and together, like a mosaic, they make up the complete picture of our life. The path to understanding the ultimate meaning lies in understanding the meaning of each individual life situation. In other words, instead of being trapped by different life problems, we need to question their meaning, what life is telling us, what we need to learn. This way, step by step, we come closer to a better understanding of life and better answers to life situations, until the final end and final answers.
2. There is a will for meaning
Whether he wants it or not, whether he is aware of it or not, man believes in meaning as long as he breathes. Even a suicide believes in some meaning – the meaning of death.
In every human being there is a belief that meaning exists and a will to discover and fulfill it. Believing in meaning is not believing in a particular god, some supernatural being that controls our destinies. It is a deep inner need of every human being for their life to be purposeful. Therefore, the fundamental motivational force in a person is an internal drive. etač that gives us the energy to do what we find meaningful and the perseverance to not give up even in difficult moments.
Man is conditioned biologically, psychologically, or sociologically, but his humanity is beyond that. With the power of his freedom, he can always break free from conditioning…
Frankl refers to it as the primary human need because it is above all other needs and independent of their satisfaction. Man is capable of giving up everything, even life itself, for his beliefs, ideals, or another person. If this need is not fulfilled, neurosis develops, which Frankl refers to as noogenic. Unlike psychogenic neuroses, which have their source in the psyche of a person, unresolved emotional conflicts and the inability to cope with life’s problems, noogenic neurosis is the result of frustrated will for meaning, doubt that meaning exists. It manifests as a neurotic triad: depression, which can lead to suicide, aggression, and addiction as a means of escape from life.
3. There is freedom of will
Without regard to Regardless of the conditions in which one lives, a person always has free will to choose the values to dedicate their life to. Therefore, it solely depends on them whether their life will have meaning or not. There are life situations that we cannot avoid or change, but we always have the freedom to choose our attitude towards them. There are no external limitations preventing us from doing so, the limitations exist within us.
To be human means constantly facing situations that are both a task and a gift. They “assign” us the fulfillment of their meaning and at the same time “gift” us the opportunity to fulfill ourselves through this meaning.
A person is conditioned biologically, psychologically, or sociologically, but their humanity transcends that. With the power of their freedom, they can always break free from conditioning.
A person is self-determining, they determine themselves by either succumbing to conditions or resisting them. They decide what their existence will be.
Existential emptiness is a significant problem, as more and more people suffer from a lack of meaning. Man. According to Frankl, there is an existential void ruling within people, an internal emptiness that arises from the lack of truly valuable goals to dedicate one’s life to. At the same time, it is also the cause of the inability to find meaning, as individuals try to fill it with empty content and activities that only intensify the sense of meaninglessness. Emptiness cannot be filled with emptiness.
Today’s society truly satisfies every need except one: the need for meaning. The feeling of meaninglessness, the existential void, is growing so much that it can truly be called a mass neurosis. …Today, there are more and more people who have all the conditions for life, but they do not see a purpose to live for… People have something to live off of, but they do not have something to live for.
The existential void manifests itself as a state of boredom or, conversely, in the accelerated pace of life, which Frankl describes as a “futile attempt to heal the existential void. The less a person’s life goal is known, the faster they spin on their life’s path.” Speaking primarily about people in Western civilization, Frankl sees the cause of an increasingly widespread existential void in the liberation of modern man from conditioned existence, the compulsion to live in a certain way, and the inability to responsibly utilize that freedom. Man has freed himself from the compulsion of instincts that were previously necessary for survival and that defined life goals. The average person today lives securely, their basic needs are met, and they are free to choose life priorities. Similarly, modern man has freed himself from the compulsion of tradition and a traditional value system that imposed a certain way of life on him, but in doing so, he has also lost clear criteria of values that guided him in life decisions. He gained freedom but lost clarity on how to live.
Freedom requires responsibility, otherwise, it turns into anarchy. Confronting existential void requires facing oneself, reflecting on one’s own life, reassessing life decisions. achieving life goals through freedom and inner change. However, it is easier for people today to give up on freedom than to take responsibility for their own lives and discover values worth living for. Instead of consciously and responsibly choosing life goals through free will, they succumb to conformity – living as others live, or to totalitarianism – living as others dictate and desire.
Responsibility towards life
What does it mean to be responsible towards life? First of all, it means understanding that life is a task. We are not born to live from day to day, we are born to fulfill ourselves as human beings. This goal is the same for all people, but it is achieved through different tasks, different life situations. Each situation has meaning, each requires something from us, each presents a challenge to our human nature. Depending on how we respond to these challenges, the values we strive for, and the humane qualities we express, we either come closer to or move away from the goal of self-realization.
Being human means constantly facing situations that are Being responsible is both a task and a gift. They “demand” us to fulfill their meaning and at the same time “give” us the opportunity to fulfill ourselves through this fulfillment of meaning.
Being responsible towards life means understanding that every life situation is unique and therefore, as Frankl says, it has a Kairos quality. In other words, every life situation is an opportunity that life offers us to fulfill our task. If we don’t take advantage of it, the opportunity is forever missed, but if we do, the gained experience remains forever recorded in our past and no one can take it away from us.
Human responsibility is something terrifying, but at the same time something wonderful. It’s frightening that every decision, from the smallest to the biggest, is a decision for eternity and that at every moment we either take advantage or waste that opportunity. … But it is also a wonderful realization that my future at every moment depends on my decision. What I realize in that moment and what I bring into life becomes a reality protected from transience and decay.