Man's search for Meaning - a transforming account of Existentialism by Dr Viktor E Frankl

"Man's search for Meaning" - a book by Dr Viktor Frankl

Most of us float through life without an existential crisis. In a way, it is a boon; for not many can survive the pangs of being stripped bare of all possessions - material, social and psychological. Biologically, a species is built for survival. An organism will persist in preserving its cellular integrity as far as it physically possible; but once that threshold is crossed, it gives itself away to mutation and irrevocable obliteration. But with Man, evolution is experimenting with a new way of being. There is a self-conscious element within him that is both a participant and an observer in the world he lives in. Over thousands of years of gradual and catastrophic changes, the inner life of a Human being has assumed several roles in different dimensions; to the extent that the proverbial “ghost in the machine”, as Arthur Koestler, phrased it, is now stands viscerally divorced from the physical self to a point that it is inconceivable to think of him as mere biological specimen in the flotsam and jetsam of genetic mutations. His identification has leaned more towards his persona - that self which accumulates, aggrandizes and is fiercely possessive of its diaphanous existence encapsulated within one's skin.

The Concentration camps of World war bought to the forefront the crisis of identity faced in the wake of complete deprivation of this “Self”. Doctors’ psychiatrists and sociologists were challenged by the utterly unnerving phenomena of survivors from gas camps, who had lost all sense of their individuality and relapsed to a primitive state of being, where there was no meaning beyond rudimentary survival of the physical. All known, understood and accepted tenets of Human behavior were challenged by the severe stress and dehumanization that happened within those dreaded walls. The entire wave of existential thinking that began with Kierkegaard in the eighteenth century, found its voice yet again in Satre, Kafka, Camus, Heidegger and Hannah Arendt who questioned the basis of Man’s self, its objective reality and the validity of its outward manifestations. And, one of the significant books on this subject written after the Jewish Holocaust- that maddening, insane period of modern history when Gas chambers, starvation, extreme degrees of pain and intolerance were perpetrated on millions in the name of racial cleansing and dehumanization – was by Victor E Frankl; a Doctor condemned to Auswitzch ; miraculously survived its horrors; came of the ordeal not only unscathed, but inwardly transformed and spread his message of optimism and meaning of Man’s innermost essence in that wonderful book with a beautiful title “Man’s search for Meaning”. Never before and never after will the depth of suffering, poignancy of depravity and optimism under direst of circumstances be portrayed with such lucidity and honesty as in this little book. It is neither a voluminous account of sadistic mechanisms of torture, nor a root cause analysis of unpardonable brutality of Nazi Germany; it is merely simple pages of a man who lived every moment of his two years in an atmosphere completely stripped of his identity and bearings; witnessing the slow depersonalization of Man to a state of biological neotony; the pulverization of Human spirit and all that it stands for; and the raw palpitations of life that hangs on perilously to a bundle of flesh on decrepit bones.

When life depends on slightest of chances; then it takes a different hue and texture all together. Victor writes about how the fate of captives depended on a simple “right” or “left” signal by an ordinary Army official. Left lead to Gas chambers; right to a life of venal degradation and a postponement of the inevitable. How judgments need to be suspended when well-meaning men start acting in most inhuman and immoral ways under loss of identity, dignity and any last vestiges of personal possessions. How even a glimpse of the majestic Bavarian mountains and its lush green verdure can look celestial when looked though a peep hole of a moving train. How Men show extraordinary kindness and resilience when everything is lost and nothing remains but a faint hope of a quick annihilation. Victor echoes the deep insight of Dostoevsky who wrote “…Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering...”; this is the quality of a man who faces existence in all its naked truthfulness.

Dr Victor came out of the camps a changed man, and the result of his ordeal, understanding and observation of Human behavior led him to spread the word - as long a Man has a meaning to his life; and can detach himself from outward circumstances; none can take away anything from oneself. Pushed to the limits, the men and women in camps started finding joy in the simplest of pleasures, the strangest of relationships; and his ability to act and not react to every challenge giving him a power that no other species has. The Platonic idea of “Logos” or Meaning and the eastern discovery ages ago that the fundamental reality of Man lies in beingness - finds its consummation in Victor Frankl’s work.

This book is required reading for all adults. Written with no pretensions; no trace of condescension- every sentence leaps out with candid truth. For our generation, there can be no better education in rooting oneself to reality than this short book of hundred odd pages. Used as we are to living so very superficially, taking our needs, wants and relationships to be granted; it is important that our awareness be turned inward – a little bit; not in the religious sense as we know it; but to enquire into that state where life takes on a meaning that is untouched by the mundane mechanical world.

I would like to conclude this essay with a deep observation from Dr Victor’s book on judging the acts of fellow Human beings. He writes: “...No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same…” Only a man who has touched the deepest chords of his being can arrive at such a position. Reading him, we are elevated to that level.

God bless…