Don't reinvent the wheel:
returning to mid20th century concepts for solutions to our human crises today
This past week I’ve been traveling in California and working out of cafes and hotels— and reading a book I checked out from our local library, and, in frustration at not being able to underline and annotate excessively in the margins— have ordered to be at home when I return. I’ve been in California, because our son, a rising 9th grader, is hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, long a dream of his. While it’s a longer story, I mention it here because I believe he is doing exactly what we are about to talk about in this newsletter for himself— perhaps not consciously (though he is a very thoughtful young person.) More on this later as his journey progresses.
This newsletter will take a slightly different form by getting into some of the research and offering key takeaways, warnings and direction behind meaning and purpose as explained by Victor Frankl, and expanding some of the ideas in Chapter 2 of The Grit Factor.
Most people know of Frankl and his seminal book Man’s Search for Meaning— if not, please purchase it immediately and put it at the top of your to-read list. This past winter, I expanded my reading of Frankl to Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning, and because everything I read by Frankl is so utterly compelling, have ordered everything else I can find that he’s written— though he apparently has 39 books, and I’m starting in the vicinity of 10. That may be sufficient for a lay person.
Frankl is so compelling today because his ideas are an antidote to the anxiety, the depression, the despondency of so much of our population. I’ve not yet discovered what happened— how has his work been supplanted such that we are all not rising on the tide of his work and assurance? And how can we find it again?
Born in 1905 in Vienna, Frankl was a professor of neurology and psychology at the University of Vienna’s Medical School. Our neighbor Herbert, who often reads this newsletter (hello!) worked in related fields in Vienna and attended lectures given by Frankl. As the Nazi horrors spread through Europe, his professional position afforded him the opportunity to leave for the United States, but because his parents were in Vienna, he couldn’t bring himself to leave for safety while they remained in danger. All (along with Frankl’s wife) were ultimately imprisoned in concentration camps. Only Frankl himself survived. And he survived to develop the concept of logotherapy, to the will to meaning. Frankl died in 1997.
The Will to Meaning
This week I’ve been reading and rereading parts of The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy, full of ideas and concepts. For this newsletter, I’m limiting myself to those ideas from this book that have the most direct application to many of the challenges we face at work and in schools.
To begin, Frankl frames the importance of reacting to the concepts of reductionism in society, something which continues to plague us today. Frankl notes in another work that he had an experience as a student once, which is suggested in this work as coming across the idea of reducing “man as nothing but a complex biochemical mechanism powered by a combustion system which energizes computers with prodigious storage facilities for retaining encoded information.”(page 8)
He agrees with the analogy of a computer, but notes:
at the same time, (humans are) infinitely more than a computer. The statement…is erroneous only insofar as man is defined as “nothing but” a computer.
Today nihilism no longer unmasks itself by speaking of “nothingness.” Today nihilism is masked by speaking of the “nothing-but-ness” of man. Reductionism has become the mask of nihilism.”
How should we cope with this state of affairs? How is it possible to preserve the humanness of man in the face of reductionism? In the final analysis, how is it possible to preserve the oneness of man in the face of the pluralism of sciences, when the pluralism of sciences is the nourishing soil on which reductionism is flourishing?”
…As Thomas Aquinas put it, man is a “unitas multiplex.” Art has been defined as unity in diversity. I would define man as unity in spite of multiplicity!”
Both workplaces and schools must contend with the fallout from this continuing issue, which is perpetuated in common discourse and education. Poor mental health costs companies $48 billion a year, according to Gallup in December of 2022. While it’s difficult to put a dollar cost on mental health in schools, any related data shows massive increases in mental health difficulties and requirements, many of which remain unmet and already will have implications that reverberate into our future.
The necessity of purpose
Frankl offers several ideas that address this, which are directly related to one another (and as you’ll see, contradict much of what is commonly discussed and taken to be true today.) The first point is that in order to flourish (my term), human beings require a connection to meaning and purpose.
Frankl suggests in different writings three approaches to this— and one that surpasses them all. Key in his points, though, is this:
a picture of sunrise from my son one day along the trail
Most importantly, and connected to all else: it is the essence of being human to transcend the self:
“It is a characteristic constituent of human existence that it transcends itself, that it reaches out for something other than the self…to put it in Augustinian terms, man’s heart is restless until he has found, and fulfilled, meaning and purpose in life.” (p 37)
Frankl suggests three ways to do this:
through creation of something bigger than the self,
through contribution to something greater than the self, and
through connection (my word) or being in relationship, or loving someone deeply.
There is one way that supersedes all of these approaches, and that is to find meaning in suffering (he does all of these things in Man’s Search for Meaning).
Frankl’s supposition is in line with his contemporary, Christian theologian Paul Tillich, who posits that “is not the courage to be as oneself, but the courage to be as a part,” (The Courage to Be) and “the more self-relatedness a being has the more it is able...to participate.” Thus, being ourselves has to do with our relationships to things beyond ourselves.
This point related closely to conversations around values and the lack of value recognition in today’s culture, but you’ll have to discover that yourself in the book (or perhaps we’ll explore in a later newsletter.)
The necessity of tension
The next point, also critical to our youth and adults, is the necessity of tension, which modern society attempts to avoid or altogether shun. This concept is put forth by Frankl, but is a part of many other philosophers work and psychologists, too (I’m thinking of Tillich’s concept of tension in theology here as well).
Frankl notes Charlotte Buhler’s analysis that “a healthy organism’s functioning depends on an alteration of discharging and upholding tensions.”
“Today people are spared tension, “ says Frankl. “First of all, this lack of tension is due to that loss of meaning which I describe as an existential vacuum, or the frustration of a will to meaning… Tension is not something to avoid unconditionally, and peace of mind, or peace of soul, is not anything to avow unconditionally. A sound amount of tension, such as that tension which is aroused by a meaning to fulfill, is inherent in being human and is indispensable for mental well being."
Moreover, “people who are spared tension are likely to create it, either in a healthy or an unhealthy way.”
This idea was a key part of the recent conversation on The Psychology Podcast between Scott Barry Kaufman and adolescent clinical psychologist Lisa Damour. The entire conversation is worthwhile, but directly to the point of necessary tension and misunderstandings around tension, Damour comments:
“And what I mean by that is that we are up against this circulating definition of what mental health is, which is that mental health is about feeling good, which it is not. Mental health is not about feeling good or calm or relaxed or at ease. This is all around us as a framing. It happens in traditional media, it happens in social media, and then it [00:06:00] creates conditions where adults and teenagers have understandable levels of discomfort and then suddenly have a lot of anxiety about the possibility that they have a mental health concern.”
…feelings are important and negative feelings are part of life, but they don’t need to stop us in our tracks. They do not need to always be taken as a sign of a mental health concern.
And that really what matters is coping. And coping well with the range of human emotions. So they don’t need to paralyze us. They don’t need to sink us. And yet they shouldn’t be ignored either…
one of the ways I’m talking about this a lot with the people I care for is, is the situation uncomfortable or unmanageable? Because sometimes it’s unmanageable, and if it is, then we need to make a big change.
But to offer uncomfortable as the alternative to unmanageable, as opposed to saying [00:10:00] either it’s unmanageable or it’s entirely comfortable, I think lets us move forward.”
The importance of not focusing on the self…
Related to both points above the necessity of existing in relationship beyond the self, as well as the acceptance of discomfort, is the necessity of NOT focusing on the self in order to live a fully human existence. This has the most obvious and direct application to what is clearly an epidemic today, not only as indicated by social media (though significantly exacerbated by that medium), but also the continuing evolution of destructive academic pedagogies over the last half century.
“Existence is not only intentional but also transcendent,” writes Frankl. “Self transcendence is the essence of existence…What am I if I do (something) for my own sake only— requires the answer: In no event truly a human being.
Stanford head of the Center for Adolescence William Damon speaks to this, challenging the concept of the “child-centered” approach (made popular in the late 1800s and prevalent ever since, especially recently) with respect— and hard evidence— in his book Greater Expectations (as well as other writings), referred to in an earlier newsletter.
…and the importance of focusing on what is possible
If you don’t focus on the self, then where DO you focus? A real question today, where everything is about ourselves in all that we see, and in the way we are influenced to act (and specifically, to consume).
The last point (for this newsletter, not for Frankl’s ideas) is the importance of not focusing on the problem itself. It is important instead (referring back to a previous point) to focus beyond the self, beyond the problem, to what is possible beyond the self.
Frankl gives an extreme example of a conversation with a 19 year old student exhibiting signs of schizophrenia and who is under supervision and care. She cannot, for some time, shift her focus away from her situation, but Frankl guides her:
Frankl: …one cannot reconstruct one’s life without a life goal, without anything challenging him,
Patient: I understand what you mean but…what’s is going on within me?
Frankl: Don’t brood over yourself. Don’t inquire into the source of your trouble. Leave this to us doctors. We will pilot you through the crisis. Well, isn’t there a goal beckoning you? say, an artistic accomplishment? …think about these things.
Patient: But this inner turmoil…
Frankl: Don’t watch your inner turmoil, but turn your gaze to what is waiting for you…
The interchange continues in this way.
In the challenges we face, our society often focuses on the problem. Whether within our selves, or without, this focus is constructive only when it is a part of focusing first on the solution.
This is, of course, also the approach suggested by our wisdom literature:
“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” - Philippians 4:8
Another of Frankl’s contemporaries, Abraham Maslow, was strongly influenced by these ideas, so much so that he took a profound turn in his work in the last few years of his life. We can explore that in another newsletter.
I’ll close with this quote from George Bernard Shaw— one of my favorites which connects to each point we covered of Frankl’s:
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
Thank you for reading, as always. I’d love to hear from you: what did you like? What resonated the most? What would you like to hear more about?
Forward this on to someone who would appreciate or benefit from this, or share with your audience, too. We can make this world better with the right conversations and the right actions. Thank you for being a part of that work.
Until then, all my best, and to facing the wind,
Shannon
MASTERCLASS TODAY for paid subscribers: Putting this reading into practice: an exercise.