Man's Search for Meaning

[Desu]

Quote:Just before Ninakawa passed away the Zen master Ikkyu visited him. "Shall I lead you on?" Ikkyu asked.

Ninakawa replied, "I came here alone, and I go here alone. What help could you be to me?"

Ikkyu answered, "If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion. Let me show you the path on which there is no coming, and no going."

With his words, Ikkyu had revealed the path so clearly that Ninakawa smiled and passed away.

I got a couple of books recently. One is Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, the other is [/i]On the Meaning of Life[/i] by Will Durant.

I'd like to write more about this later, because I also want to respond to a discussion I read on another board about Schopenhauer's philosophy who regarded life as essentially suffering. I believe he wrote about this in his book The World as Will and Representation. Essentially he thought that pleasure and happiness were "negative" in the sense that all positive experiences in life are temporary respites from an existence that is vain and painful. Schopenhauer annoys me, and frankly I cannot trust a man whose ideas were colored by his own bad experiences in life, and he even justified suicide more than once in essays he has written. I also find a lot of traditional philosophy as quaint and unenlightening. Schopenhauer asks the reader to suspend disbelief in order to justify his views on the value of the human will, and pleasure and pain. I call into question whether or not it matters, if life is essentially pain, or essentially pleasure. Not only that, but he made a mistake in attempting to set up this false dichotomy between "pain and pleasure" when the real question is whether human existence has any value or not.

Commenting briefly on Durant's book:

One day Durant was in his yard sweeping up leaves apparently. A man approached him and said that he would kill himself if Durant did not give him a reason to live. Durant did the best he could, but the man left unmoved by his arguments. Durant never saw him again.

After that experience, he wrote a letter to around 100 people, some famous thinkers, some authors, some spiritual leaders, etc. basically asking them what the meaning of life is. Durant published some of the responses into his book, On the Meaning of Life.

It wouldn't do me justice to summarize some of the responses, since they were quite long. The most touching one was from a convict Durant had written to, who was serving a life sentence in prison. I recommend you spend the 10 USD or whatever and buy the book.

In all the replies, there was a general theme that all of them were touching on. It's a theme that you notice from many people, across different cultures and different eras. The value of human existence, and really all of existence, lies in the role that one plays in life. "The meaning of life" is pointless to consider. Nobody will ever figure out the "meaning" of life, because there isn't one.

If you live in this existence as Gaiyara, Soulriser, Sick Fuck Zero, Justin, Darthmat, Ahab, the guy next door, a child living in Malaysia, the guy next door, a homeless person, the 1st Roman emperor, a suffering person with a terminal disease, a tree, a rock, a stray cat, a beetle.... You have a role to play. You come into this existence with X set of characteristics, and the beauty of the human will is that you have choices to make. Your role is obviously influenced by where, how, and what you are in this existence, but no matter what you are in this life, you have a role to play, no matter where existence is headed.

Here is part of the letter that the convict had written back to Will Durant:

Quote:An eminent author and philosopher seeks an answer to that age-old question: What is the meaning or worth of human life? An equally eminent publisher asked me how I manage to bear it in my present position.

To the philosopher, I – a man serving a life term behind prison walls – answer that the meaning life has for me depends upon, and is only limited by, my ability to recognize its great truths and to learn and profit by the lessons they teach me. In short, life is worth just what I am willing to strive to make it worth.

To the publisher, I say that life, even from within prison walls, can be as intensely interesting, as vitally worthwhile as it is to any man on the outside. It all depends upon the faith one has in the soundness of his philosophy.

My philosophy of life is a homely one, compounded of many simple beliefs of which truth is the guiding star. Upon my ability to see life in its true aspect, I depend for that mental equilibrium without which I find myself drifting in a welter of conjecture and contradictory speculation.

“We are driven to conclude,” argues the philosopher, “that the greatest mistake in human history was the discovery of truth. It has not made us happy, for it is not beautiful. It has not made us free, except from delusions that comforted us and restraints that preserved us. It has taken from us every reason for existence except the moment's pleasure and tomorrow's trivial hope.” If our happiness and our reason for existence depended upon our inherent tendency to seek comfort in delusions, false tradition and superstition, then I could agree. We should be unhappy when truth deprived us of their questionable consolation, but they do not.

Truth is not beautiful, neither is it ugly. Why should it be either? Truth is truth, just as figures are figures. When a man wishes to learn the exact condition of his business affairs, he employs figures and, if these figures reveal a sad state of his affairs, he doesn't condemn them and say that they are unlovely and accuse them of having disillusioned him. Why, then, condemn truth, when it only serves him in this enterprise of life as figures serve him in his commercial enterprises? That idol-worshipping strain in our natures has visioned a figure of Truth draped in royal raiment and, when truth in its humble form, sans drapery, appears to us, we cry, “Disillusionment.”

Custom and tradition have caused us to confuse truth with our beliefs. Custom, tradition and our mode of living have led us to believe we cannot be happy, save under certain physical conditions possessed of certain material comforts. This is not truth, it is belief. Truth tells us that happiness is a state of mental contentment. Contentment can be found on a desert island, in a little town, or the tenements of a large city. It can be found in the palaces of the rich or the hovels of the poor.

Confinement in prison doesn't cause unhappiness, else all those who are free would be happy. Poverty doesn't cause it, else the rich all would be happy. Those who live and die in one small town are often as happy, or happier than many who spend their entire lives in travel. I once knew an aged Negro who could not tell the meaning of one letter from that of another, yet he was happier than the college professor for whom he worked. Hindus are happy, so are the Chinese, the Africans, the Spaniards, and the Turks. The North, the South, the East and the West all contain happy persons. There are celebrities who are happy, and there are many happy people living obscure lives. Happiness is neither racial, nor financial, nor social, neither is it geographical.

This brings me to Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl:

There are some books, where a single paragraph makes the book worth buying and reading, just to find that single paragraph of insight. Man's Search for Meaning has many such passages.

Victor Frankl is (now) a famous psychologist who was imprisoned in death camps in Germany for several years. When he left, he wrote about his experiences, and the psychology of a prisoner in these camps. He gives an amazing picture of the mind of an inmate in one of these camps, and camp life. He doesn't try to shock you, or sensationalize what it was like. He presents everything in a very level-headed manner, and the book naturally touches you without the author even trying.

This book may be helpful for many all of you. Especially those of you who feel that your time has been wasted in school. Or maybe you're stressed out about your silly family life etc. The book convinces us that even when our lives appear meaningless, pointless, full of suffering, insignificant... it is full of value, which lies in the role you play; the way in which you respond to life.

There are many great insights in the book, but here is a sample that hits on the main message of the book:

Quote:The tender beginnings of a psychotherapy or psychohygiene were, when they were possible at all in the camp, either individual or collective in nature. The individual psychotherapeutic attempts were often a kind of "lifesaving procedure." These efforts were usually concerned with the prevention of suicides. A very strict camp ruling forbade any efforts to save a man who attempted suicide. It was forbidden, for example, to cut down a man who was trying to hang himself. Therefore, it was all important to prevent these attempts from occurring.

I remember two cases of would-be suicide, which bore a striking similarity to each other. Both men had talked of their intentions to commit suicide. Both used the typical argument--they had nothing more to expect from life. In both cases it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them. We found, in fact, that for the one it was his child whom he adored and who was waiting for him in a foreign country. For the other it was a thing, not a person. This man was a scientist and had written a series of books which still needed to be finished. His work could not be done by anyone else, any more than another person could ever take the place of the father in his child's affection.

This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love. When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsbility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how".

[SoulRiser]

(moved to Philosophical)

I've always had a hard time trying to explain to people how they are unique and irreplaceable, and have their own unique and irreplaceable role to play that nobody else can do. Most people don't know what that role is, and it seems many never find it in their whole lives. This explains it quite well I think.

I'm gonna link to this from that suicide sticky thread.

[Vatman]

I have read your post over a few times and I simply have to disagree with the whole lot of it. Its not that the concept or logic is flawed, in fact, its the opposite entirely. The logic is flawless, natrually it is not acomplishment that gives people happiness, natrually there is no solution to the "meaning" of life, natrually we do not come or go we simply exist.

What is flawed is the posts perspecitives on humanity, which it seems to deny like a catholics closet homosexuality.

Quote:the real question is whether human existence has any value or not.

Well this question is really unfinished and unrefined dontcha think? ...Who or what would human existance have value to exactly and as far as the asker goes, how can one individual play devils advocate for the entirity of society? In fact I don't even know how the asker can possibly know if their exists any other individual other than then asker itself.

Schopenhauer is a real pessimist, he bores me to tears. In fact the only philosopher that I think ever was really on to something was Plato. I know. I know. Not a new statement. Vatman we demand originality. Or even better. WHAT ABOUT NIETZSCHE VATMAN OMGZ...well as he famously said, "I would not know what the spirit of a philosopher might wish more to be than a good dancer." And let me tell you, that man could waltz with the best of him and never once tried an original step.

Back to Plato even if that german basterd called him boring in Twilight ....(if anyone gets that joke they get a brownie point from me)....Plato's idealisim is the very foundation of philosophy, and don't worry I am not here simply to kiss up to th ebastered, I want to take his idea a step further.

I am sure you know the basics of idealisim, the parallel world of ideals that humanity creates and which all knowlege and logic then stems off of. Voila, here I go. Boldly going where (possibly but not likely) no man has ever gone. What if. This world of idealogies. Is actually a tangible entity. I am not saying the Apollo 12309812309812 will land on it one day as the astronauts inside play rock paper sizzers deciding on who gets to do a backflip first. I am speaking of course of drawing a tangent with the idea of a colleted unconsious human mind.

Now this whole peice of crap that I am trying to spoon feed is not supposed to be some forlorn answer to lifes purpose but rather a responce to your wording. Human Value. I am a firm believer that our purpose in this world is to feel. Pleasure, pain, nothing at all, its what humans rather than any other animal are designed to do. We simply can't stand up to any other living orgainisim in their respected niches, our claim to fame is simply feeling. (I am not so sure about the thought process though, I have had a cat who would purposly scare me whenever I forgot to feed it...I am telling you...never trust a pussy.)

Anyway....back to your actual post.

Perhaps its my overly opportunistic nature, but when I see and think of people in confinement; I can't help but think in a reflective emotional nature. "I am trapped, I am here because I have been deemed scum by my race and I will probably die here an outcast of society forced to be taken from my favorite things outside like Robeks and nipple slips of Jessica Alba." The convict who wrote to Mr. Durrin was correct in stating that the actuality of the situation is; its the persons feelings towards the confinement that makes it unpleasant. But its undenaible that the feelings are only materialized when actually experienced. Thus his point can't be valid.

[Desu]

The thing is, I am questioning the importance of feeling itself. I am talking about existence itself. Matters about feeling should have no regard to the value of existence. The value of human existence stems from the role that humans play within existence. Everything has a role while it exists, and because we are human, we have a role to play as humans. Then you keep breaking that down further and further until it comes down to you and what you are supposed to do in this moment.

Of course you said,

Quote:Human Value. I am a firm believer that our purpose in this world is to feel.

You differentiated between humans and non-humans. That's sort of what I was talking about when I say "roles". I guess we could argue about the role that humans play, but I wonder if that's even important, since ultimately it always comes down to you, and not anyone else. It feels like a cop-out when I say that, but I think judging the value in existence is subordinate to judging the value of oneself.

[Vatman]

Gaiyara-chan Wrote:The thing is, I am questioning the importance of feeling itself. I am talking about existence itself. Matters about feeling should have no regard to the value of existence. The value of human existence stems from the role that humans play within existence. Everything has a role while it exists, and because we are human, we have a role to play as humans

*yawns* And I am saying that role. Is feeling. It is the only characteristic that truly defines us from lets say a naked mole rat and gorillas.

[Desu]

Vatman Wrote:

Gaiyara-chan Wrote:The thing is, I am questioning the importance of feeling itself. I am talking about existence itself. Matters about feeling should have no regard to the value of existence. The value of human existence stems from the role that humans play within existence. Everything has a role while it exists, and because we are human, we have a role to play as humans

*yawns* And I am saying that role. Is feeling. It is the only characteristic that truly defines us from lets say a naked mole rat and gorillas.

Animals can feel pain and pleasure, just like humans. What separates humans from non-humans is making decisions, not feeling. It is an act of bad faith when you choose to give yourself up and stop making decisions, because deciding to not decide is in itself, a decision.

This is why it's important to recognize that despite your conditions in life, no matter where or who you are, you can always make a decision about how you respond. This is the point that Durant and Victor Frankl were trying to get across.