# The Will to Meaning ## Metadata * Author: [Viktor E. Frankl](https://www.amazon.com/Viktor-E-Frankl/e/B000APVZJU/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1) * ASIN: B00N21QACQ * ISBN: 0142181269 * Reference: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N21QACQ * [Kindle link](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ) ## Highlights In an age such as ours, in which traditions are on the wane, psychiatry must see its principal assignment in equipping man with the ability to find meaning. — location: [82](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=82) ^ref-42562 --- To detach oneself from even the worst conditions is a uniquely human capability. — location: [235](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=235) ^ref-5908 --- Well, man, too, projected into a dimension lower than his own seems to be a closed system, be it of physiological reflexes or psychological reactions and responses to stimuli. Those motivational theories, e.g., which still adhere to the homeostasis principle, deal with man as with a closed system. — location: [339](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=339) ^ref-19066 --- Now the apparent closedness of man in the biological and psychological dimensions no longer contradicts the humanness of man. Closedness in the lower dimensions is very compatible with openness in a higher one, be it the openness of a cylindrical cup, or that of a human being. Now it may also have become understandable why sound findings of research in the lower dimensions, however they may neglect the humanness of man, need not contradict it. — location: [345](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=345) ^ref-1208 --- And, last but not least, there are noogenic neuroses, as I have called them. They originate in spiritual problems, in moral conflicts, or in that conflict between a true conscience and the mere superego which I referred to at the outset of this chapter. — location: [363](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=363) ^ref-29992 --- Confining himself to the dimension of psychiatry, however, implies projecting a given phenomenon into the dimension of psychiatry. This is perfectly legitimate as long as the psychiatrist is aware of what he does. Even more, projections are not only legitimate but also obligatory in science. Science cannot cope with reality in its multidimensionality but must deal with reality as if reality were unidimensional. However, a scientist should remain aware of what he does, if for no other reason than to avoid the pitfalls of reductionism. — location: [395](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=395) ^ref-57015 --- Charlotte Bühler1 has rightly pointed out, “from Freud’s earliest formulations of the pleasure principle, to the latest present version of the discharge of tension and homeostasis principle, the unchanging end-goal of all activity all through life was conceived of as the re-establishment of the individual’s equilibrium.” — location: [414](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=414) ^ref-4146 Similar to arguing for reducing suffering and increasing pleasure. But to me part of pleasure,missed by others description of pleasure, is in overcoming challenges and also in the process of understanding why things are or why they happen. --- Goldstein could offer evidence, on the grounds of brain pathology, for his contention that the pursuit of homeostasis, rather than being a characteristic of the normal organism, is a sign of disorder. Only in cases of disease is the organism intent on avoiding tensions at any rate. — location: [420](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=420) ^ref-46064 --- In contrast, Charlotte Bühler “conceives of man as living with intentionality, which means living with purpose. The purpose is to give meaning to life . . . The individual . . . wants to create values.” Even more, “the human being” has “a primary, or native orientation, in the direction of creating and of values.” — location: [432](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=432) ^ref-34909 --- The more one aims at pleasure, the more his aim is missed. In other words, the very “pursuit of happiness” is what thwarts it. This self-defeating quality of pleasure-seeking accounts for many sexual neuroses. — location: [438](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=438) ^ref-62596 --- Normally pleasure is never the goal of human strivings but rather is, and must remain, an effect, more specifically, the side effect of attaining a goal. Attaining the goal constitutes a reason for being happy. In other words, if there is a reason for happiness, happiness ensues, automatically and spontaneously, as it were. And that is why one need not pursue happiness, one need not care for it once there is a reason for it. — location: [443](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=443) ^ref-46493 --- The accent which Freudian psychology places upon the pleasure principle is paralleled by the emphasis which Adlerian psychology places upon the status drive. However, this striving also proves to be self-defeating, insofar as a person who displays and exhibits his status drive will sooner or later be dismissed as a status seeker. — location: [449](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=449) ^ref-43440 Higher status is a way of increasing good feelings of satisfaction and higher self-worth attached to identity. So it is related to the pleasure principle and for some people, seeking status comes from doing what they view as meaningful. --- Success and happiness must happen, and the less one cares for them, the more they can. — location: [456](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=456) ^ref-39697 --- the status drive or the will to power, on one hand, and the pleasure principle or, as one might term it as well, the will to pleasure, on the other hand, are mere derivatives of man’s primary concern, — location: [457](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=457) ^ref-2450 Since seeking pleasure, money, and status can be done without a meaning, can we say they are always dericeties? Not really. --- What I call the will to meaning could be defined as the basic striving of man to find and fulfill meaning and purpose. — location: [459](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=459) ^ref-41884 --- Both happiness and success are mere substitutes for fulfillment, and that is why the pleasure principle as well as the will to power are mere derivatives of the will to meaning. — location: [466](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=466) ^ref-36756 --- Man, then, lacking a reason for pleasure, provides himself with a cause whose effect is pleasure. — location: [480](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=480) ^ref-54364 --- Cutting off the objects to which such experiences refer must eventuate in an impoverishment of psychology. That is why human behavior cannot be fully understood along the lines of the hypothesis that man cares for pleasure and happiness irrespective of the reason to experience them. Such a motivational theory brackets the reasons which are different from each other, in favor of the effect which is always the same. — location: [519](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=519) ^ref-57425 --- To the class of those phenomena which cannot be pursued but rather must ensue also belongs health and conscience. If we strive for a good conscience we are no longer justified in having it. The very fact has made us into Pharisees. And if we make health our main concern we have fallen ill. We have become hypochondriacs. — location: [525](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=525) ^ref-53684 --- Let us imagine that an individual is mourning the death of a beloved person and is offered some tablets of a tranquilizing drug to bring him relief from his depression. Except for the case of neurotic escapism, we may be sure that he will refuse to tranquilize his grief away, for he will argue that this will not change anything, the beloved will not be revived this way. In other words, the reason for being depressed will remain. Unless he is a neurotic individual, he will be concerned with the reason for his depression rather than with the removal of this depression. — location: [543](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=543) ^ref-54470 --- I have tried to convey that existence falters unless there is “a strong idea,” as Freud put it, or a strong ideal to hold on to. To quote Albert Einstein, “the man who regards his life as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life.” — location: [639](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=639) ^ref-57099 --- man’s heart is restless unless he has found, and fulfilled, meaning and purpose in life. This statement, as we will see in the next chapter, epitomizes much of the theory and therapy of that type of neurosis which I have termed noogenic. — location: [711](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=711) ^ref-3618 --- if man is to find meanings even in an era without values, he has to be equipped with the full capacity of conscience. It therefore stands to reason that in an age such as ours, that is to say, in an age of the existential vacuum, the foremost task of education, instead of being satisfied with transmitting traditions and knowledge, is to refine that capacity which allows man to find unique meanings. Today education cannot afford to proceed along the lines of tradition, but must elicit the ability to make independent and authentic decisions. — location: [824](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=824) ^ref-24468 --- Selectivity, however, is based on responsibility, that is to say, on decision-making under the guidance of conscience. — location: [835](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=835) ^ref-47760 --- he is not only guided by conscience in his search for meaning, he is sometimes misled by it as well. Unless he is a perfectionist, he also will accept this fallibility of conscience. — location: [839](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=839) ^ref-36624 --- But if man is not to contradict his own humanness, he has to obey his conscience unconditionally, even though he is aware of the possibility of error. I would say that the possibility of error does not dispense him from the necessity of trial. As Gordon W. Allport puts it, “we can be at one and the same time half-sure and whole-hearted.”18 — location: [843](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=843) ^ref-12488 --- The reader may notice that here the third “triad” is introduced. The first triad is constituted by freedom of will, will to meaning, and meaning of life. Meaning of life is composed of the second triad—creative, experiential, and attitudinal values. And attitudinal values are subdivided into the third triad—meaningful attitudes to pain, guilt, and death. — location: [937](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=937) ^ref-31071 --- It is a prerogative of being human, and a constituent of human existence, to be capable of shaping and reshaping oneself. In other words, it is a privilege of man to become guilty, and his responsibility to overcome guilt. — location: [946](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=946) ^ref-54993 --- Once we deal with man as the victim of circumstances and their influences, we not only cease to treat him as a human being but also lame his will to change. — location: [951](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=951) ^ref-41256 --- For in the face of the transitoriness of his life, he is responsible for using the passing opportunities to actualize potentialities, to realize values, whether creative, experiential, or attitudinal. In other words, man is responsible for what to do, whom to love, and how to suffer. Once he has realized a value, once he has fulfilled a meaning, he has fulfilled it once and forever. — location: [955](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=955) ^ref-60509 --- “As a boy I thought: ‘I will tell them what I saw, in the hope that people will change for the better.’ But people didn’t change and didn’t even want to know. It was much later that I really understood the meaning of suffering. It can have a meaning if it changes you for the better.” — location: [1023](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1023) ^ref-51039 --- sex often serves as a cheap escape from precisely those philosophical and existential problems which beset man. — location: [1049](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1049) ^ref-7611 --- There is no need to feel ashamed of existential despair because of the assumption that it is an emotional disease, for it is not a neurotic symptom but a human achievement and accomplishment. Above all, it is a manifestation of intellectual sincerity and honesty. However, if a young man confesses to his prerogative and challenges life’s meaning, he must have patience—enough patience to wait until meaning dawns upon him. — location: [1131](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1131) ^ref-11107 Questioning your purpose in life is intellectually honest but you have to be patient in finding your purpose. --- in the field of science our intelligence might do. With respect to our beliefs, however, we must sometimes rely on and trust in other people greater than ourselves, and adopt their visions. In his search for an ultimate meaning of being, man is basically dependent on emotional rather than merely intellectual resources, as we know; in other words, he must trust in an ultimate meaning of being. What is more, however, this trust must be mediated by his trust in someone, — location: [1153](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1153) ^ref-49072 Having faith, in an emotional sense, that there is a meaning. --- there are certainly moments in my life at which I do not reflect at all, and just then, meaning simply is there. I even experience a kind of union with being, and one could say as well that this is akin to the experience of being close to God as it has been reported by the great mystics. — location: [1164](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1164) ^ref-34865 The feeling of being in the moment and enjoying it (without the narrative construction) is full of meaning. This is similar to meditation or sports or flow. --- you will find that there is nothing to be ashamed of, but rather something to be proud of, namely, intellectual honesty. Rather than interpreting your problem in terms of a symptom, you will learn to understand it as an essential aspect of la condition humaine to which you then confess. You will regard yourself a member of an invisible community, the community of suffering humans, suffering from that abysmal experience of a basic meaninglessness of human existence, and at the same time struggling for a solution to the age-old problems of mankind. The same suffering and the same struggling unites you, in fact, with the best exemplars of humanity. So try to be patient and courageous: patient in leaving the problems unresolved for the time being, and courageous in not giving up the struggle for their final solution. — location: [1179](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1179) ^ref-11048 --- You should rather take this despair as evidence of the existence of what I am used to calling “the will to meaning.” And in a sense, the very fact of your will to meaning justifies your faith in meaning. Or, as the famous Austrian novelist Franz Werfel once said, “Thirst is the surest proof for the existence of water.” He meant, how could a man experience thirst unless water were in the world. — location: [1192](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1192) ^ref-32177 Humans are built to acquire beliefs, and meaning on a grander scale. Our brains are built that way, I just need to find or construct a philosophy I can believe in. --- paradoxical intention should always be formulated in as humorous a manner as possible. Humor is indeed a definitely human phenomenon.15 After all, no beast is capable of laughing. What is even more important, humor allows man to create perspective, to put distance between himself and whatever may confront him. By the same token, humor allows man to detach himself from himself and thereby to attain the fullest possible control over himself. — location: [1341](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1341) ^ref-54927 --- People who think that life must be successful are like a man who in the face of a construction site cannot understand that the workers dig out the ground if they wish to build up a cathedral. God builds up a cathedral in each soul. In my soul he is about to dig out the basis. What I have to do is just to keep still whenever I am hit by His shovel.” — location: [1664](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1664) ^ref-64573 --- One must go through his own existential despair if he is to learn how to immunize his patients against it. — location: [1730](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1730) ^ref-10813 True for everyone who has to understand other people: investor, historian, leader --- It is the patient who has to decide whether he interprets responsibleness in terms of being responsible to humanity, society, conscience, or God. It is up to him to decide to what, to whom, and for what he is responsible. — location: [1787](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1787) ^ref-56656 logo therapy is agnostic to the source of ultimate meaning and the patient's belief system. It is about curing neurosis due to uncertainty about your belief system or purpose. --- Man cannot break through the dimensional difference between the human world and the divine world but he can reach out for the ultimate meaning through faith which is mediated by trust in the ultimate being. — location: [1821](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1821) ^ref-30766 --- man really cannot perceive things without perceiving them in space and time and applying to them the category of cause and effect. So far Kant. Now it is my contention that man really could not move a limb unless deep down to the foundations of existence, and out of the depths of being, he is imbued by a basic trust in the ultimate meaning. — location: [1873](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1873) ^ref-10582 --- The trend moves toward a profoundly personalized religion, so that every man will arrive at a language of his own, find the words of his own, when addressing himself to the ultimate being. — location: [1919](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1919) ^ref-11288 --- People only see the stubble field of transitoriness but overlook the full granaries of the past in which they have delivered and deposited, in which they have saved, their harvest. — location: [1950](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1950) ^ref-29341 See the meaning of your life in the actions you have taken, and the things you have created. See the foundation you have built for future generations to look back on or the realization of your values through your actions. --- Logotherapy regards man as being in search of meaning and responsible for its fulfillment. Logotherapy sees its own assignment in making man conscious of “being responsible,” of his “responsibleness.” — location: [1972](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=1972) ^ref-2468 --- The concept of a will to meaning as the basic motivation of man is a slap in the face of all the current motivation theories, which still are based on the homeostasis principle, regarding man as a being who is just out to satisfy drives and instincts, to gratify needs, and all this just in order to maintain or restore an inner equilibrium, — location: [2024](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=2024) ^ref-36966 Clearly from a neurobiological perspective, there are inner chemical drives. The will to meaning probably comes from anxiety-induced discomfort and a need to find something to believe in that can create dried. --- as a young man I had to go through the hell of despair over the apparent meaninglessness of life, through total and ultimate nihilism, until I could develop an immunity against nihilism. I developed logotherapy. It is a pity that other authors, instead of immunizing their readers against nihilism, inoculate them with their own cynicism, which is a defense mechanism, or reaction formation, that they have built up against their own nihilism.13 — location: [2092](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=2092) ^ref-59671 --- Our industrial society is out to satisfy each and every need, and our consumer society even creates some needs in order to satisfy them. The most important need, however, the basic need for meaning, remains—more often than not—ignored and neglected. — location: [2097](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=2097) ^ref-39240 --- once a man’s will to meaning is fulfilled, he becomes able and capable of suffering, of coping with frustrations and tensions, and—if need be—he is prepared to give his life. Just look at the various political resistance movements throughout history and in present time. On the other hand, if man’s will to meaning is frustrated, he is equally inclined to take his life, and he does so in the midst, and in spite, of all the welfare and affluence surrounding him. — location: [2099](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B00N21QACQ&location=2099) ^ref-16304 ---