Reading Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning has been the best thing I ever read on this topic. Changed my whole perspective.
The tldr version goes something like: “Meaning is irrelevant, but humans need meaning to live. Pick any meaning you want. Doesn’t matter what, just choose something. Then go for it with all your might. If you ever find it wasn’t a good meaning, pick a new one. You’re a different person now anyway”
Sorry to blow your mind then, but to quote an HN comment of mine:
It seems Frankl has been somewhat exposed/debunked. Would you believe he was at Auschwitz for only a few days, performed medical experiments on Jews himself, and it appears his main thesis about attitude mattering above all else for survival in the camps is simply false.
>It seems Frankl has been somewhat exposed/debunked. Would you believe he was at Auschwitz for only a few days, performed medical experiments on Jews himself
The Wikipedia link doesn't mention anything of the sort. And the other discussion just points to the same link / "proof".
On the contrary, it does mention that he helped save thousands of mental patients from the Nazis, and that he was held not just in Auschwitz, but in 4 camps (in which case, whether he was in Auschwitz just for "a few days" is irrelevant).
As for the "performed medical experiments on Jews himself", which makes him sound like Mengele, what he did was treat people including Jews who had attempted suicide. He used electroshock therapy and even lobotomy, but those widely used in the time, they weren't some nazi-like experiments (and up to the 1970s in the USA for example).
>and it appears his main thesis about attitude mattering above all else for survival in the camps is simply false.
That's just what some other professor said in some papers. Not some definite rebuttal. You can find papers against anything...
I really loved Frankl's book as a teenager. I only learnt about his dark side, that the book was full of lies, recently. I didn't just read the wikipedia page, followed up the references, reading into several books that go into detail about it. The more you learn, the more disturbing and weird it gets. Yes in fact they do sound like disturbing Mengele-like experiments on people. His massive-bestseller book makes it sound like he was in Auschwitz for a long period, which is a total lie. (Did you read it? I can't imagine anyone who loved the book thinking it "irrelevant" whether he actually was at Auschwitz!)
edit: Gee, you're right about the wikpedia page! The controversy section has been entirely erased since I last looked! Very weird. Sorry about that. e.g. in April last year it looked like
Removed in April by, from their bio, "co-founder of the Viktor Frankl Institute of America. I was born in Vienna, Austria in 1974 and am the grandson of Viktor Frankl."
Oh thank you for finding that out. That sounds very fishy! It seems his grandson totally rewrote his page, including removing the long Controversy section. I'm not sure how that edit has been allowed to stand so long. (I put a comment on the talk page saying that just now.)
Huh. I didn’t get that synopsis at all from Frankl’s book, “Mans Search for Meaning” it’s been a long time, maybe I need to re-read, but what I got was “you may not be able to change what happens to you, but you can change how you respond to it, and this gives you power”
One of my favorite quotes from the book: "We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that 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”.
Let's say one was caged in an unbreakable cage. Depression, anxiety, loneliness and boredom, would be natural reactions to such confinement. One could even say any opposite reactions wouldn't be fully human, something would be amiss. Being repressed and unable to do anything about it, often lead to depression and anxiety then. These things are sneaky, especially what is not readily visible to the eye.
Now, even though depression and anxiety can have many causes, including the individual itself and one's reactions. We know humans and living beings need physical and mental stimulation. Thus activities such as dancing, singing, whatever would activate joy, can help break bad spells. We don't know beforehand either, what we could have capacity to enjoy, so should seek out diverse experiences and people with an open mind.
Such tools may help to uncover a person's life's purpose. To find meaning, we need tools and other people as mirrors. We may even need to experience stuff we later actively decline, for many different reasons.
Thinking too much or one's attitudes, can hamper and limit much more than a person might realize. It's easy to miss out of one own's life, by comparing and vying for other people's lives. Also even though one would be totally miserable with another's plights!
So it is there, in-between activation and purpose, one need the reminder, that the purpose is not the end result. That life's not a journey. We alone judge good and bad, while life just is as it is regardless what we think and feel in each moment. Letting go of the destination and many concepts, we can realize it doesn't matter who is fully realized and perfect. That life happens perfectly every moment regardless, and that those who tell others what their meaning is, is full of * * * *.
The tldr version goes something like: “Meaning is irrelevant, but humans need meaning to live. Pick any meaning you want. Doesn’t matter what, just choose something. Then go for it with all your might. If you ever find it wasn’t a good meaning, pick a new one. You’re a different person now anyway”