Frankl, my dear, I do give a damn.

Part 1: You have taunted me with your philosophical ways.

“He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.” – Nietzsche

When I first finished Man’s Search for Meaning, by Frankl, I felt as though I had discovered something that I’d known all along but couldn’t express clearly (or at all). This is where I would find happiness, I thought. In meaning I will be fulfilled. It didn’t seem that it would be hard, because I’ve always been able to take my own personal meaning away from experiences and ideas. But is this the type of meaning that Frankl describes? Would I survive torture for these simple meanings and connections that I make with the world around me? After thinking about this for a while, I decided that he must have meant a bigger meaning, something much greater than these little observations I make about my world. So what is my why that Nietzsche talks about?

An infallible why, I’ve realized, is hard to find. Even the larger ideas of God or faith in a person or institution can crumble sometimes, and there is nothing left to hold on to. The ideas or faith may come back eventually, but it doesn’t change the fact that there are moments when they’re gone, and the suffering Frankl talks about seems meaningless. Because suffering for a meaning isn’t really suffering, it’s martyrdom. It’s done proudly and with reason. But suffering when that meaning is lost (albeit temporarily) is the worst kind of suffering. In the absence of why, the how becomes both infinitely bleak and impossible to overcome. (Though for me, luckily, it has always resolved itself eventually.)

When meaning is lost, is a sense of responsibility lost also? If it’s felt that there is no meaning or no purpose in a life, is there any reason to go on living it? Frankl says no, and it’s clear that those men in the concentration camps who have lost the meaning have no interest in life (that one part about the prisoner laying in bed all day, not eating, not drinking, defecating in his pants was gruesome). In the non-concentration camp lives, if meaning is temporarily lost, and responsibility is temporarily lost along with that meaning, doesn’t society impose certain consequences? For example, if a student temporarily lost her sense of the why that got her through the how of SATs and college applications, and went off to find her meaning again, wouldn’t she be punished by not getting into college and having all of those opportunities that come along with that? When does personal meaning take priority over society’s requirements for success? Or does personal meaning take shape when we assume our, and by direct extension, society’s, responsibilities? Do we really have a choice in whether we assume certain responsibilities, or do we have no choice but to empower ourselves and make meaning out of what we have?

Part 2: Your mysterious nature has obsessed me. And after a weekend of “meaning”, “existential vacuum”, “collective” and “individual” spinning in my mind over and over (causing me to brood like a misanthropic loner), I finally compressed some of my mad inner monologue.

The idea of not having any meaning in my life makes me think of the man lying in the concentration camp, smoking all of his cigarettes and throwing himself into the electric fence. It’s one that makes me think of a sleepwalker, numb to all pain and passion. It reminds me of overdoses, uncried tears, depression, tied nooses, a handgun, walking in the middle of a busy street, and emptiness. In the search for meaning in my life, there are times when these thoughts will happen, regardless of how together I may have it at one moment. A mind searching for meaning can easily become an existential vacuum, filled with meaningless suffering.

In the times of the vacuum, many unanswerable questions cross my mind. Questions like, Can I be an unhypocritical individual and still live amongst the collective? Do I have control over my life, or is it completely controlled by forces that I don’t have control over (such as society)? Will I ever have a solid meaning in my life that I can hold onto and trust? Are there any definite rights or wrongs? Does success come from within or without? Do I owe anybody anything by just existing? These questions feel like vultures circling in the sky of my mind, waiting for the kill.

I said in my last paper, “An infallible ‘why’, I’ve realized, is hard to find. Even the larger ideas of God or faith in a person or institution can crumble sometimes, and there is nothing left to hold on to.” I believe this is true. All of these things can be rendered meaningless in an instant. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I’ve come up with two possible solutions.

Solution 1: It’s true that religion or a person or an institution can all come crashing down, but I can still choose to put my faith in that thing and commit myself to it. Faith itself (not the religion, person, etc) is where the meaning comes from. Using these things as tools, I may be able to find my meaning. People find their meaning through these things all the time, and then find happiness; that’s why they try and convert other people. But I think it should be remembered that the path to meaning is different for everybody, and needs to be respected

Solution 2: The search for meaning in life can become the meaning itself. That is to say that the exact answer will never be found completely, but the search, with all of its critical thinking/feeling, journeys, failed paths, momentary disappointments and triumphs, love, suffering, happiness, etc, becomes more powerful and meaningful because I am constantly searching for that higher meaning. Solution 2 is like the meta search for meaning. It’s more lucid, because I’m always critically thinking about the events and feelings in my life, and questioning them. It’s turning life into one big trip around the critical thinking wheel.

As for the momentary periods of existential vacuum, those times go along with the territory of searching for meaning. Without empty space, nothing can be added or filled in. The existential vacuum could be the time when my mind is readying itself for another clue to the bigger meaning. It could be giving the Universe an opportunity to fill my mind. (In which case the vacuum itself becomes more meaningful, and therefore less of a vacuum.)

Or, the time of the vacuum and the filled space could both be illusions created by my own mind, and I might actually know what my meaning of life is if I free my mind and accept it.

Who know? (And if you do, tell me.)