Man’s Search for Meaning | Viktor Frankl

This episode of Books for Men features Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. A memoir about an Austrian psychiatrist's experience surviving Nazi death camps, as well as, his psychotherapeutic approach to living a meaningful life. Listen for more!

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Welcome back to Books for Men, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So I first just wanted to start by sending a big thank you to everybody who has supported the podcast and helped push the initiative forward by either sharing it with friends and family or by rating, reviewing, or subscribing on whatever podcast platform you listen to this on. Both of those things go a very long way in increasing awareness of the show. And then ultimately the initiative, which I had already mentioned, is to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. And so I just want to thank everybody who has supported the show in that fashion. It means a lot. And with that being said, this week I have a very special book. It is called Man Search for Meaning, and it's by Victor Frankl.

(01:01)

It is a non-fiction book. We are sticking with the trend, like always moving into the non-fiction realm this week. It is a very, very popular book, and for good reason by last account, or the last time I saw it had 16 million copies or something like that in circulation, or 16 million copies were sold, which is pretty remarkable for a single book. So let's start with the genre, which is a memoir. So it's autobiographical. It is also kind of self-help and it definitely would be considered therapeutic. So psychotherapy in a way. So it's a mishmash of a couple of things. It's a very short book in that it's under 200 pages. I believe the paperback is 180 or 190 something in that range. It was originally published in 1946 in Vienna, and then it was first published in the US in 1959, then was republished many, many times since then.

(02:02)

And the most current version was done in 2006, and that is the one that you could purchase now. So if the book is a memoir, then who is Victor Frankl? Right? This is a really important element to the book. Obviously, he's an Austrian psychiatrist and he's a Nazi camp survivor. So he survived the Holocaust. Basically, what Man’s Search for Meaning is, is one part, his survival story. So how he managed to get through what was not just one of the most difficult times in his life, but as we can now look back on it in history as being one of the most difficult times in the history of the world and the cruelest and the most savage like times in the history of the world. And so the book really tackles a huge subject matter as if the title isn't enough, right? Man’s Search for Meaning.

(02:57)

And really what it's getting at is how do you find meaning in a situation that is essentially hopeless? And although we are not all Holocaust camp survivors, I think that the reason this book has been so successful is not just because it tackles such an emotional firsthand account of something, but because it's getting at something that is to the core of our existence as humans on earth, whether we're a man or a woman. And especially as we grow older, it is important to remind ourselves that we need to value hope in our lives and how to derive meaning in a way that we are always hopeful. And in many ways, this book is about hope and it's about strength, and it's about free will in how you respond to any given situation in your life. Or like Victor Frankl says in the book, “The one thing you can't take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do. To me, the last of one's freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given circumstance.”

(04:03)

And I don't think that this is trying to demean or diminish the seriousness of any person's situation in life. But if you think about it from a very, very pure perspective and very, very realistic perspective or irrational standpoint, what he's saying there does have some relevance, right, in that the choice of how you respond in any given situation and the attitude that you bring to that situation is the last of somebody's freedoms. So the world can punish you to the end and treat you very, very unfairly. And you don't need me to tell you just how unfair the world can be. But if you remain hopeful throughout that and you have a reason to push on in life, then it becomes a little bit easier. And that is your decision in life.

(05:03)

And this is a very, very deep book, and it's a very, very deep concept, and it's a very, very deep thing to think about in your life. But it's not something that you should shy away from or something that you should take lightly either because at some point you are going to be faced with this challenge in your life if you're not already being faced with many challenges, whether they are physical or mental or environmental in many, many ways. This book, what was so interesting about it for me, not when I first read it, but why I wanted to share it with you, is it's almost a book that's in direct opposition to a book that I already shared with you on the podcast. So, I shared a book with you called The Stranger, which was by Albert Camus, in that, he basically lobbies for this idea or his general philosophy on life is around absurdity in the fact that there is no meaning to life and things just happen.

(06:05)

And you kind of have to get through that. And it's an interesting philosophical standpoint and something to consider and think about. But what this book offers is something completely different, and it almost empowers you to create meaning in your life and to value meaning in your life, even if it is self-generated. And in many cases, or at its very core, it is self-generated, and that's the point of it, right? So if in the first part of this book, Victor Frankl talks about his firsthand experience in surviving the Holocaust and surviving Nazi camps. And the second part, he talks about what he did with his life after he survived, and he fled to Austria and became a psychiatrist, and he developed what was known as logotherapy. Basically what logotherapy is, is everything that I've been describing to you. It's an existential philosophy or therapy, which basically relies on finding a specific meaning for your life and then using your imagination to consistently and repetitively use that meaning to endure and achieve anything in your life, giving you a reason to live.

(07:13)

In a way, and this kind of relates to Eastern philosophy, I love Japanese culture, and they have this saying known as ikigai which basically means a reason for being or to find one's life purpose on a personal level. I've found that that philosophy and that terminology and that idea has really resonated with me, and it relates very, very heavily to Victor Frankl's idea of logotherapy At its core, it's basically the same thing. There are a couple of quotes that I love from the book, but one of them definitely is this one. “In some ways, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice. If you have a meaning for why you're suffering, then it becomes a sacrifice for that thing that's really, really powerful.” I can't even describe how powerful that is. If you have the aptitude or the strength to think about a situation in that manner.

(08:21)

Or another one that I really love from the book. It's much shorter and much quicker. It's probably my favorite quote from the book is, “What is to give light must endure burning.” That's freaking powerful. And another one that is often attributed to the book, but it's actually a Nietzsche, Victor Frankl just uses it in the book, is, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” That at its core is really what this book is about. So I guess that probably will be a good place to leave you and a good place to wrap this up. As always, I want to remind you that if you enjoyed this episode, then please tell a friend, a family member, anybody a coworker about it, females, males, the more people that we can get behind the initiative of inspiring more men to read and bringing together men who do than the greater chance we have at actually achieving that initiative.

(09:22)

And I hope that you can be a champion for that by spreading the podcast via word of mouth with friends, family members, and coworkers. And of course, you can always double down on that by supporting through subscribing, following, or rating the podcast on whatever platform you listen to this on. And of course, as a reminder, if this book wasn't your cup of tea, if this isn't something that you think you would enjoy reading, then two things. One, go back into the archives and look at some of the books that we've already done. Some of the titles might jump out at you and say, oh, that sounds interesting to me. Or just wait until next week because I'm going to feature a completely different book. I try to value variety on the show, at least within my interests because obviously, I'm human. I don't read everything.

(10:14)

There are certain genres and certain things that don't do it for me, they don't get me going. And remember, if you want more information, you can visit books for men.org. Well, you can also sign up for the monthly newsletter, which is just a roundup of all the books and authors that you hear on the podcast, as well as two or three bonus books that I read during the month. So they're not books that get featured on the podcast, but they're books that I read in real-time and I think that you might enjoy reading. So that's a good reason to sign up for the monthly newsletter. And again, you could do that at BooksforMen.org.