Book Notes, Summary and Review: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

Man's Search For Meaning written by Viktor E. Frankyl, a Holocaust survivor, recounts his harrowing experiences in a German concentration camp. Many lessons can be drawn from the book about the human condition; it invites you the reader to reflect on where we can find meaning, how we can imbue our lives with meaning, last but not least, what it means to be human.

Creating meaning in our lives

From Frankyl's point of view, life isn't a quest for pleasure, or a quest for power, but a quest for meaning. Our most cardinal task in life is to search for meaning in our lives. According to Frankyl, there were three possible sources of meaning:

1. In work

One can search for meaning in work by doing something significant.

This is fairly intuitive. Doctors and healthcare workers, for example, who heal others and bring them back to full health can often find meaning in their occupation. Researchers and academics also frequently find meaning in their work, knowing that what they do helps advance the frontiers of human knowledge and have a sizeable impact on the global community.

Throwing ourselves into work, which we perceive to add value and meaning to the lives of others, in turn inspires our lives with meaning.

2. In love

One can search for meaning in love by caring for another person.

Love is recognizing another person's potential, which hasn't been actualized but should be actualized. The loving person, through his love, makes the beloved person aware of what he can be. In doing so, he makes these potentialities come true.

Moreover, love goes beyond the physical presence of the beloved. The meaning of love is found in the deepest crevasses of the human psyche. Whether of not he or she is still alive somehow consequently ceases to be of importance.

The unconditional nature of love is what makes it the ultimate and highest goal to which any man can and should aspire to. Just as described by Frankyl, "the salvation of man is through love and in love".

3. In courage

One can search for meaning in courage during difficult times.

Life is filled with suffering, it's an inextricable part of life. Without it, human life can never be complete.

Suffering in itself is meaningless, yet we can give it meaning by how we respond to it. You may remain courageous and selfless, or forget your human dignity and surrender to your animalistic instincts.

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. - Viktor E. Frankyl

As Frankyl noted, when one gives up faith in his strength to soldier on, his will to live seldom returned. It was thus imperative for one to develop strategies to reframe his suffering:

1. One way was through humour. Humour affords an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds, and to reexamine the meaning of his suffering in his life.
2. Another method was through introspection. As Spinoza in Ethics remarked, "Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it."

Suffering is inevitable, but as shown in Frankyl's work, it need not be meaningless, rather it can be a great source of meaning.

Looking at it the other way

My greatest takeaway from Man's Search For Meaning, without question, was how Frankyl approached one of the greatest philosophical question of all time: "What's the meaning of life?".

His suggestion was simple yet profound. To him, this question was pointless — it didn't matter what we expected from life. What's more important was: what life expected from us, each day and each minute.

How we responded to this line of questioning ought not to be verbal; it must manifest itself in the way we act and live our life. We ought to assume responsibility for our actions and to fulfill the tasks which had been assigned to each one of us. These tasks differed from man to man, moment to moment, and hence can never be answered with a straight-forward, generalized response.

A brilliant analogy, proposed by Frankyl, encourages you to consider your life as a movie: it's made up of thousands of different pictures, each one carries a specific meaning. The meaning of every single situation has to be actualized to the best of the individual's knowledge and ability.

Experience each moment as though it's your last.

Concluding message

Man is a being who can always decide whether he'll sink to the level of an animal, or soar to a life of near-divinity. To a large degree, however, this is dependent on whether he or she has a clear and strong Why to do the right thing.

It's through our pursuit of meaning that we derive this Why, and never for a second have our lives been devoid of meaning. Even if suffering is rampant in our lives, we can still forge meaning from our suffering. The only thing holding us back from finding meaning in our lives is our incapacity to rationally grasp the unconditional meaningfulness of life.

So, what's your meaning in life? Or rather ask yourself: what is it that life wants from you?