Where Has All The Meaning Gone?

Please watch the video below.

Where Has All The Meaning Gone Script

We’ve covered a good amount of the philosophical stuff behind Logotherapy. Today we’ll look into some of its more practical applications. But. Before we do…we need to address something we brought up in our last video, the issue of why it’s so hard to find meaning in our modern age, which is necessary to understand if we’re going to explore Logotherapy’s practical uses. Although this is a super complicated issue with a bunch of different answers, I’ll stick to one of Frankl’s main thoughts on it it, which is this: he seems to think our loss of meaning has to do with our unprecedented amount of freedom, combined with an unprecedented lack of direction.

We used to have kings who could kill us, Priests who could burn us, women were mainly on lock down, debtors (rightfully so) were jailed, and fathers their families with impunity. And, also nature was constantly buttfucking all of us to top it off.

Despite how bad all of these different things sucked on one level, they did provide us with a sense of meaning on another. Horrible storms were something to survive. God, for better or worse, was experienced as a psychological reality. And all of those other super restrictive and oppressive conditions of rulers, fathers, or whoever else, spawned the dreams of liberty that we enjoy today.  

So to be clear, it’s great that we, for the most part, ditched much of those super oppressive intstitutions of the past…but with our chains also went many of our sources of meaning. We, rich in freedom and material comfort unimaginable to our ancestors, are unprepared to shape and direct our own lives. We’re free to choose, but don’t know how to on since we, for the most part, aren’t really struggling under issues that are as immediate and obvious as the stuff our ancestors faced.

Frankl states that “freedom will degenerate into arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsible-ness.”

Basically, being totally unrestrained isn’t freedom, it’s a vacuum. The walls that once boxed us in have been removed, but now there’s no walls, no guide posts, and many of us laze about in a sort of paralyzed daze.

True freedom, in Frankl’s eyes, is being free to decide toward something, to perform a meaningful self-chosen task. And that’s not to be confused with conforming or taking orders. This kind of responsibility comes from within.

But how do we get to our stuff that’s within us so we can properly guide ourselves toward meaning?

By establishing what Frankl calls a “private desert” which is really just a space you designate for serious contemplation and reflection. This can be done by meditating, going on longs walks, having in-depth conversations with people we trust, or whatever else as long as the intention is centered around connecting ourselves to sources of meaning.

Our lack of meaning, according to Frankl, comes from our inability to contact the part of ourselves, call it a conscience or deepest inner self, so we can make decisions from our core, rather than just constantly folding to external pressures. Also, again according to Frankl, but I also agree, much of these sources of meaning are outside of us in that ideally we should be figuring out how we can, using the freedom we’ve been blessed with, contribute to something larger than ourselves, whether than be God, society, community or family—if we wish to experience a deep sense of meaning. If not, no prob, go on with ur selfish ass self!  So, consult with inner self, come up with your unique meaning quest, do it. See whether or not that gives us a sense of meaning. And if not, back to the “private desert” and think of something new. What we do or contribute is the gift we bring to the world and the sense of meaning we feel from giving it is the sort of hug of the universe we receive in return. And if that language makes you uncomfortable, think of it in terms of liquid in your brain being squished out of your glands—doesn’t matter, the feeling of meaning is still there. In one of his American lectures Frankl was attributed with saying something like, “we should supplement the statue of liberty on your East Coast with a “statue of responsible-ness” on your west coast, with an inscription saying: the torch that directs the poor and huddled masses toward freedom must be reinforced with an inner light that directs them toward a meaningful use of that liberty.”

Okay, so here’s a quick recap on what Logotherapy is trying to bring to the table:

1.      Like we said, accept the responsibility that finding meaning is up to ourselves and only we know how to find it.

2.      Ritualize some form of self-communication so that we can help ourselves find these deeply yearned for states of meaning. We already covered Frankl’s idea of a “private desert.” Personally, I also think that journaling, meditating, talking to others about such things, and also psychedelics (if used properly) can be useful in this part as well. Another useful tool would be doing some structured values writing exercises. This was covered in the Values portion of acceptance and commitment therapy thing that I did, but you can also just find stuff on youtube about it.

3.      Once we’ve identified potential sources of meaning the next step is to embed them into our lives in the form of habitual action, to get out of what Frankl calls “the day-to-day planless attitude toward life” which he believes ultimately leads to nihilism and frustration, since our energy just seeps out into nothing, rather than being directed at something we find meaningful. He uses a boomerang to illustrate this point in that a boomerangs only return to us if we miss our target. If we notice we our awareness getting stuck on ourselves and all our bullshit, it’s typically bc we don’t have a meaningful target to chuck our stupid awareness at so it’s not just telling us how fat and dumb we are all day.

4.      Also, being in touch with a greater purpose beyond our own selves is also suggested as it takes our focus off ourselves and how fat and dumb we are like we’ve already covered, and also it’s good to shrink our cosmic importance down a bit because being the center of the universe can be pretty stressful sometimes.

5.      The goal here is not to simply feel good or to reduce mental tension, but to instead feel whole by increasing tension, by taking on as much as we possibly can. Of course we all have our limits, but Logotherapy views our pain and discomfort as a normal part of being human, not a sickness, and the way forward is by increasing our load and becoming stronger, rather than trying to get rid of everything that makes us feel uncomfortable. Think of responsibility like weights. Frankl wants us to lift as much as we can and become spiritually jacked. And, of course warns us not to take on unnecessary suffering as that is just us being masochistic.  

Okay, but what if we do all of these things and we still can’t seem to find a source of meaning, or discover our values? Frankl lays out some more detailed guidance in the next video, breaking sources of meaning down into categories and also hipping us to some of the clinical benefits for turning the knob down on self-obsession and instead focusing it on the bigger picture and what we can do for whatever big thing we wish to enhance through our unique gifts and traits.