There I have been making the point that there is a difference between success and victory or triumph. Success is defined from within. So catastrophe is not possible. If I have achieved it, it is for the sake of itself, not for fame or fortune’s sake. Triumph or Victory is what others make of it. And from where they project what they expect from it. If we go for that, we are not en route for success, but for failure. So it is metaphysical, or spiritual, indeed.

As for Frankl here: The old man wasn’t searching for meaning in his life so much as for meaning of his wife’s death. That event was given meaning to by Frankl. So the old man could settle this issue and get on with whatever was left on his list.

I am referring to John P Strelecky’s concept of the BIG FIVE FOR LIFE. It suggests success is what matters most to us. And only to us. Everybody does have things he/she wants to do, see, or experience during their lifetime. Only we can tell what this means to us. We may grow up in an environment which distracts us from those BIG FIVE FOR LIFE (Where FIVE is but a metaphor borrowed from the African Big Five).

If there was nothing left on the old man’s list, he would have been able to rest in peace.

Your mention of a “mean-making machines” is quite materialistic and not at all spiritual. Which is fine. But as you had been mentioning Einstein and his aversion to Quantum Physics, I would like to draw your attention to David Bohm’s concept of the “Wholeness and the Implicate Order”. I am sure Frankl would have liked it. Do you, Andreas?

Speaking of appropriateness of titles – any progress on yours?

This is of no functional importance to therapy or assisted mental metabolism; psychology has no aspirations for the soul, it all comes down to a mind in anguish.

If the individual can make it on his-her own, so much the better. It is definitely less costly and implies a lesser strain on the mind from circumstance.

Pain or suffering if meaningless to the individual mind is a tad more difficult to bear.

The reason I’m sure is that a) I have opined on Haidt’s title and b) I highlighted that exact quote when I read his book, then looked up the footnote and dug out McAdams’ work, which I then footnoted in the first chapter of my book.

Come clean! When I woke up at 3am last night to pee, I logged on as … Jag, right?

Quoting from John Haidt’s excellent book The Happiness Hypothesis (poorly titled and marketed as a “shelf help” book, but its really a remarkable synthesis of the latest psychology, neuroscience and ancient wisdom)

On the uses of Adversity page 143
‘We can’t stop ourselves from creating what McAdams describes as “an evolving story that integrates a reconstructed past, perceiebd present, and anticipated future into a coherent and vitalizing life-myth”… [which is] a work of historical fiction’

In Blessed are the Sense Makers page 147 he describes an experiment done by Pennebaker, which demonstrated that people who wrote about ‘the most upsetting or traumatic experience of their lives” for 15 minutes for 4 days had a lower incidence of flu (an other illnesses) 6 months later.

And telling in further analysis on page 148 ‘Pennebaker discovered… the people in his studies who used their writing time to vent, got no benefit. The people who showed deep insight into the causes and consequences of the event on their first day got no benefit. They had already made sense of things. It was the people who showed progress across the four days, who showed increasing insight… whose health improved over the next year…. you have to use words and the words have to help create a meaningful story’
>> its clearly the creation of new meaning/sense that helps

You can look at more of the book using Google book reader at http://bit.ly/134Obx

And get more details at http://www.happinesshypothesis.com/chapters.html

I love Solid Gold’s phrase, “meaning-making machines”. And I agree that that’s what we are.

By coming to Frankl’s defense (not that I critqued him very heavily!), we are collectively elevating him even higher. Perhaps he is a GREAT thinker?

In general, I like to critique ideas to test them and to strengthen them. Let me try again: Continuing Joe’s logic, we have evolved biologically to narrate meaning into the world around us. So some of us are innately better at it than others. What we call resilience is really just an enhanced ability by A to “make meaning” as compared to B.

Since we are critiquing logotherapy, however, that raises the question of my example above with the old man: Can the old man show up, sit down with Frankl, do some fancy conceptual gymnastics, and walk out with meaning?

Much of this “meaning making” cannot be very convincing, above all to the meaning-making machines themselves. That’s what I’m saying. You see meaning or you don’t. No?

Philopp Phogg: No, Frankl didn’t say what happened to the old man next. You notice that Frankl interprets his departure to mean that he (frankl) has given him meaning. In reality, the old man might have gone and jumped off a bridge.

Just to be clear once again, guys: I LIKE Frankl, which is why I’m devoting space to him here. I BUY most of his thinking. I’m just testing it to find out where the holes are.

Think not only of abstract “meaning”, but also of the “physical” world, and of the old chestnut about a tree falling in a forest out of earshot of anyone. Does the falling tree make a noise independent of anyone hearing it? Or is the noise made only when someone hears? I believe that any noise is made only when we hear it. It is a function of the stuff inside our ears resonating with soundwaves from the fall of the tree. Since this is what I believe, it is, for me, a fact.

I believe also that all “matter”, whether inanimate (a table) or animate (a human) is an amorphous quantum soup which only becomes “matter” when we observe it, or touch it. Thus you and I are part of this amorphous quantum soup. What we believe we look like, comes only from our observing ourselves.

I repeat: all this is only what I believe!!!

Meaning is a human invention. Just like good and evil, god and the devil etc. Without our narrative – working in a soup kitchen is no better clubbing baby seals for fun.

The thing is, humans seem happier and more productive finding meaning in our lives. People facing great adversity (sickness, war etc.) have turned to their faith in God to help them continue to function. As the saying goes – “There are no Atheists in the foxhole”

Meaning is what has caused us to evolve above our base instincts of survival and procreation. It is a useful tool but nothing more.

Are you saying that there are no eternal verities (protection of one’s family, showing dignity to others, etc.),that everything is subjective, subject to our human whims?

Are you saying that there is no meaning out there in the cosmos? That until we label “it”, it is meaningless?

If I say something is good, it’s good?
Just because I say it? In my reality?

Did Frankl say that this man didn’t have meaning in his life from that point forward, or is this your opinion? How about that this man’s life was given meaning in his mind by having survived his wife? That would have given meaning to his life from that point forward.

……..it might be helpful to see meaning (= believe in God), but that does not mean that there actually is meaning (=God). Sartre might be right after all……..

I suggest that whether there is, or isn’t a God, is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether one believes there is a God, or no God. For any of us, what we believe is our reality. Any meaning we give to our lives or circumstances is a product of our belief, and nothing else. Meaning is all about belief.

All so-called facts, all so-called objective realities, regardless of what they are, may be no more than the sum total of our beliefs. They exist only by our agreement.