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Possibility: We need meaning more than happiness. For Frankl, meaning came from three possible sources: purposeful work, love, and courage in the face of diffi

Possibility: We need meaning more than happiness. For Frankl, meaning came from three possible sources: purposeful work, love, and courage in the face of difficulty. ~ from Viktor Frankl on the Human Search for Meaning: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32283033 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32283033 Don’t aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run—in the long run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it. ~ Viktor Frankl

nonrandomstring 4y ago
Frankl's status as a Holocaust survivor affords him a special perspective that few get, or would want to. On the other side of PTSD, for a lucky few, is "post traumatic growth". I won't claim it's a super-power but it gives a perspective in which many "meaningless" things melt away and one sees the world vividly. IIRC (it's a while since I read Frankl) logotherapy starts from a point of utter meaninglessness, in the camps or on the battlefield where people die for no reason. With all the "meaning" stripped away one is free to build ones own. Frankl gave an enormous gift with that book and his work in clinical practice, up there with Donald Winnicott. Sadly very little makes it into ordinary life, perhaps because the subject matter is too challenging.

nonrandomstring 4y ago

Frankl's status as a Holocaust survivor affords him a special perspective that few get, or would want to. On the other side of PTSD, for a lucky few, is "post traumatic growth". I won't claim it's a super-power but it gives a perspective in which many "meaningless" things melt away and one sees the world vividly. IIRC (it's a while since I read Frankl) logotherapy starts from a point of utter meaninglessness, in the camps or on the battlefield where people die for no reason. With all the "meaning" stripped away one is free to build ones own. Frankl gave an enormous gift with that book and his work in clinical practice, up there with Donald Winnicott. Sadly very little makes it into ordinary life, perhaps because the subject matter is too challenging.