6 Lessons I Learned Reading Man’s Searching for Meaning
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What is the meaning of life?
Today, men have lost touch with their primal instincts and their traditional rituals.
We see it everywhere - there is a void of meaning in the lives of many young men, who instead fill their time with video games, pornography, and weed.
Published in 1946, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl is more relevant now than ever.
I will share with you six important lessons that I have learned from reading this book, and tell you how you can create actionable improvements in your life, using the wisdom from the author.
Book Summary
Viktor Frankl was a Jewish psychologist living in Vienna when the Nazis took over.
In 1942, he was sent to a concentration camp, and he was transferred around various camps for the next three years before finally being set free in 1945.
Author Viktor Frankl (photo courtesy of Prof. Dr. Franz Vesely)
Man’s Search for Meaning is divided into two parts.
The first part provides a first-hand account of the horrors that the author suffered in various concentration camps, including Auschwitz.
He discusses the experience of arriving at the first camp and being separated from his wife, being put to work as a laborer, and then his role as a camp doctor during an outbreak of typhus.
Man’s Search for Meaning is not written as a statistical, historic account, but rather a personal recollection of his experiences.
It provides a microscopic insight into how the trauma of camp life affected the mind of an individual.
At the same time, Frankl did not write a personal sob story, nor a soap opera.
Many personal details, such as the fact that his wife died of typhus, are left out.
In the second part of the book, the author makes the case for logotherapy - a psychotherapeutic approach that helps the patient discover meaning in their life.
He outlines many of the problems that people faced in living a fulfilling life, and these are problems that people still face today.
He then relates his experiences in the camp with his philosophy on the meaning of life, and how to find it.
Lesson I - You Can Endure More Than You Know
The first lesson we learn from this book is the first lesson that the author learned during his early days at the concentration camp.
You can endure more than you know.
Frankl was a doctor before he was taken prisoner, and in the camp, he found other prisoners who were also medical experts.
Frankl was sent to various concentration camps, including Auswitchz (photo courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum/ Instytut Pamieci Narodowe)
They were all shocked to find out that ideas they previously held as facts about human physiology were simply not true.
For example, a man can go without sleep for much longer than they had previously thought.
The prisoners had healthier gums than before despite not brushing their teeth and being deficient in vitamins.
And the sores and abrasions on their hands did not get infected, despite the horrendous lack of sanitation.
Frankl arrived at the same conclusion previously hypothesized by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, which is: “Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything.”
Bear this in mind next time you have to overcome challenging conditions.
If you did not sleep well the night before, ignore this setback and power through your workout as normal.
If the noise in your home is not optimum for work or studying, challenge your mental fortitude to improve your powers of concentration and focus.
Maintain the attitude that whatever happens in your environment, your output will not be compromised.
Lesson II - He Who Has a Why Can Endure Any How
Frankl makes the case that man can endure far more than he knows, but through what means?
To have this will for survival and the power to endure suffering, man must have a reason for living.
In Neitszche’s words: “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.”
This reason for living comes from an understanding that life still expects something of you.
And specifically you.
This expectation may be to love and care for someone, such as a wife, parent, or friend.
Or it may be to complete a task that only you can fulfill.
In the camp, Frankl had two primary whys to keep living.
One was to see his wife again - because he had no knowledge that she had died until he was liberated from the camp.
And two was to complete a manuscript on logotherapy that he had begun but had been confiscated upon arrival.
Lesson III - The Gap Between Who You Are and Who You Will Become
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task”
As the book goes on, Frankl makes the case that there should always be a gap between who you are now, and who you will become.
Closing this gap is part of your reason to live.
But just as importantly, experiencing this gap and feeling this tension is crucial for our mental health.
Frankl writes: “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.”
I think this is one of the most actionable pieces of advice in the book.
You must have a higher ideal of yourself that you aspire to in various domains.
One of the most obvious ones would be fitness.
Right now, I see a very clear gap between the physique I have, and the one I believe I should have.
In my work, I see a gap between the reach and influence I have now, and the reach and influence I want in the future.
And even on a more personal, intellectual level, there are skills and characteristics that I must develop to become the man I want to be.
As an actionable step, I would love it if you can go to the comments.
Write down one gap you see in your life between who you are now, and who you want to be.
Lesson IV - Beware of the Existential Vacuum
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl identifies what he calls an existential vacuum.
It appears that the same malaise and apathy that affects young men today also affected people decades ago.
Frankl proposes that humans have lost touch with both their primal instincts and traditional rituals.
We do not have the daily brushes with death and raw expression of our caveman desires that our tribe-dwelling ancestors did.
Meanwhile, most people also have no religious doctrine to follow and no wars to fight.
Some fill the resulting void of existence with the desire to be like others, which is conformism, or to do what others tell them, which leads to totalitarianism.
This existential vacuum is often most pronounced among the unemployed.
But studies have found that unemployed people who decide to volunteer their time to a worthy cause, without payment, experience a significant increase in meaning and fulfillment.
Fankl argues that meaning is even available through suffering.
He provides the example of a young man from Texas named Jerry Long.
Jerry was paralyzed neck down after a diving accident aged 17.
However, rather than surrender his life to his condition of quadriplegia, he attends courses at community college remotely, and occupies his time by reading, watching television and writing.
In a letter to Viktor Frankl, Jerry said: “I view my life as being abundant with meaning and purpose.
“The attitude I adopted on that fateful day has become my personal credo for life: I broke my neck, it didn’t break me.
‘I am currently enrolled in my first psychology course in college,” continued Jerry.
“I believe my handicap will only enhance my ability to help others.
“I know that without the suffering, the growth that I have achieved would have been impossible.”
In the same way, the suffering that the author experienced in the camps gave him the perspective he needed to write this book, which has had a life-changing impact on millions of readers around the world.
Lesson V - Your life has a unique meaning
So, what is the meaning of life?
Frankl argues that to ask this question is the same as asking, ‘What is the best movie of all time?’ There is no objective, definitive answer.
Instead, he writes: “Everyone has his own specific vocation or assignment which demands fulfillment.”
Therefore, the meaning of life is to fulfill that task that only you can fulfill.
What unique combination of experiences, skills, and motivations do you possess that you can utilize for a specific purpose?
For me, I had experience and training as a journalist, a love for men's style and tradition, and the goal to create a generation of gentlemen.
My unique combination of attributes led me to the creation of Gent Z, and the community that we have here provides a tremendous amount of meaning in my life.
Logotherapy, which Frankl pioneered, makes the patient aware of his own responsibleness, his unique source of meaning.
He tells the reader: “Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now.”
Lesson VI - You Choose How to Exist
The final lesson to take away from Man’s Search for Meaning is that you choose how to exist.
According to Frankl, the concentration camps bought out the extremes in every man’s character - in either a positive or negative way.
From this, he concluded that we have agency over how we choose to act and treat our fellow man. It is not determined by our societal roles, even if we wear a uniform.
Frankl’s experience of the concentration camps was not a simple story of evil Nazis suppressing benevolent prisoners.
He talks a lot about the Capos - Jewish prisoners who were used as guards, who could be mercilessly cruel in their positions of power.
On the other hand, he found that some of the SS men were surprisingly kind.
We see this in modern life too.
For example, some cops are bad, some of them are the best people around.
To label all people of any profession, nation, or circumstance as the same would be incredibly short-sighted and reductive.
And finally, in a situation where all other freedoms had been taken away, Frankl discovered that the only freedom that cannot be taken from you is your freedom to choose how you respond to a situation or circumstance.
Conclusion + Book Club invite
Gentlemen, I hope you have enjoyed learning the lessons that I gathered from this fantastic book.
I encourage you to now read it and study it yourself to develop your own interpretation and discover its teachings.
If you want to read more books and engage in intellectual discussion with like-minded men, I highly encourage you to join the Gent Z book club, part of our online community.
