When I picked up this book I initially thought it was Man’s Search for Meaning (a memoir from a Nazi concentration camp) – which I had been wanting to read for a while now – until I was realized it was Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning – apparently not the same. But this was a pleasant, perhaps fateful, mix-up.

Written by the same author, Viktor E. Frankl explores in depth the rise of existential crises among the youth. He examines this by claiming that the current Freudian perception of man – which is the notion that all humans are controlled by certain drives such as hunger or greed – can do more harm than good. He finds, through stories of people’s experiences that this makes people seem like ‘machines that must be fixed’.

Of the several profound ideas he puts forth, he mentions that people must not be excessively analysed because that removes the ‘human’ in them. An artist cannot and would not be able to produce, he says, without the ‘non-rational artistic conscience’. If an artist were to sit down and say, ‘now I will paint’ without inspiration, they would only face failure. Of many other examples of the sort, Viktor E. Frankl emphasizes that meaning is found through spirituality – and yet, he mentions that regardless of gender, tradition, religion, or race, everyone can find meaning, and that it is not a therapist’s job to provide meaning for one’s life.

He suggests that the feeling of emptiness, which is accompanied by cynicism, nihilism, and depression, can be filled only with meaning. A life without meaning is not a life – a life without purpose, a life that is not led by one’s own choice of freedom is not a life.

I for one enjoyed this book; it certainly proposes more ideas than one could state in a page, which are deeply profound. I paused and reflected several times throughout the book, and at once even found a tear escaping my eye. And that did not only happen because I am emotional by nature, but because it felt as though the book were speaking to me, and to my generation. It gave me a new outlook on how we as people function, and it challenged the Freudian philosophy that we are simply bodies with drives. For if we were simply driven by certain things, we would not have a conscience, and there would be no ‘human’ in ‘human’.

An existential vacuum, the emptiness, is caused because of the lack of purpose or meaning. Frankl states that life is not a pursuit of happiness, but a “will to meaning; meaning in suffering” and “freedom of will.” Though not an easy read, this book provides a more hopeful, and meaningful, perspective on life.

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

‘Honor’ by Elif Shafak
A novel about love, tradition, betrayal and the obstacles faced by a family of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London.