I greatly enjoyed this book. It is an insightful and engaging read. It added a depth of understanding of logotherapy.
- Some of his ideas about sex seem antiquated
- Life can have meaning even until the very end and even if it is only for brief moments. Logotherapy can help with facing death
- Deep dive into paradoxically intention
- Hyper attention
- PI is founded in humor, don’t take yourself so seriously, shame hates light
- I believe in PI in a broad sense but would like to see quantitative evidence to prove it
I don’t have much to say. I read this in two days and was half paying attention. I enjoyed it and need to reread it and mark up the physical copy.
PK, 11/24
The Unheard Cry for Meaning
Viktor Frankl
- [ ] I am excited to read this book
- [ ] Published in the 70’s an extension of his life’s work, Logotherapy, the search for meaning
- [ ] In modern times with greater technology, greater wealth, and more connection, there seems to be an even greater gap in the search for meaning. People are still committing suicide and suffering, it is there lack of meaning
- [ ] We have a greater means of living but we lack the meaning
Taken from the Logotherapy wikipedia page
- [ ] Logo therapy: healing through meaning
- [ ] noogenic neurosis: the feeling of an inner void. This results from an awareness of the emptiness caused by a lack of meaning, or ‘existential vacuum’
- [ ] The following list of tenets represents basic principles of logotherapy:
- [ ] Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones.
- [ ] Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.
- [ ] We have freedom to find meaning in what we do, and what we experience, or at least in the stance we take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering.[2]
According to Frankl, "We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways:
- [ ] by creating a work or doing a deed
- [ ] by experiencing something or encountering someone
- [ ] by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering" and that "everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances".
- [ ] There is a direct connection between lack of meaning and depression/aggression/addiction
- [ ] These arise often when there is a lack of meaning. I have experienced this personally with my addiction
- [ ] Maslow’s hierarchy might be off because often the desire for meaning is more powerful than the desire for base survival needs. In the horrors of the concentration camp, the longing for meaning was present even when the needs for survival were gone
- [ ] The desire for meaning exists always, even at death it seems that it is the only thing that is left
- [ ] Once meaning is found, it cannot be undone
- [ ] We have a deep desire to give meaning to our past and our suffering. We must not define ourselves by our past or allow it to torment us, instead we give it meaning. That meaning to the suffering allows us to recover.
- [ ] When we cannot change a situation, we must change ourselves. That allows us to get through it and grow
- [ ] It is not the therapist’s job to give their patient meaning, but it is their role to help them find meaning
- [ ] There is no right or wrong prescription for meaning, Frankle does not say religion or any other specific source. The search for meaning and it’s discovery/definition is always a personal one
- [ ] He does state that it is always about the internal and the focus on the self. We suffer when we focus on ourselves, we must give ourselves to something higher, to love, to someone, to something. We find meaning when we get out of ourselves and give it to something greater
- [ ] I can see how these ideas can be distorted by the authoritarian/fundamentalist/nefarious, but Frankle is not, he is purely altruistic
- [ ] If I took the notes I wanted, I would be copying every word from this book
- [ ] Values and culture, where does one find their values, the culture is a set of values
- [ ] Critiques/responses to other psychological analysis
- [ ] The problem of over/hyper self analysis, we are constantly looking for diagnosis and insights. We are own armchair/expert psychologist. This is over blown and we should let go of it. The example of the internal/self reflective/critical peace corps volunteer reflecting on intentions/altruism/superiority
- [ ] We must take responsibility for our attitudes towards our own internal dialogue (I am not sure if this is what he is saying)
- [ ] Attitudes and responses towards aggression/suicidal thoughts
- [ ] There is a choice in forgiveness/aggression/our attitude
- [ ] Interesting ideas about sex/the pill/meaning. Sex should be about love because only a person that is in love can give true meaning to sex. Sex should not be just about pleasure but about the meaning and giving to something greater. The pill has allowed people to have loving sex without the hang up of the intention of procreation. He has odd ideas about sex
- [ ] The third chapter is critical and want to have a ton of notes on it but my a short summary of what I understand is:
- [ ] Being human is to be present, it is to give yourself to something greater
- [ ] Being human is having connection and being part of the world, it is being in the moment
- [ ] Humans crave intimacy and we seek it wherever we can even if it is superficial
- [ ] There is a deep personal responsibility that we have towards our suffering and how we approach it
- [ ] There is a great response to Freud, ‘when one begins to question if life has meaning …’ and Frankle’s response is the opposite, that question is the point of our life and psychoanalysis
- [ ] Causes and source: the cause of our suffering is not the same as the source. Much psychoanalysis gets the two wrong or does not make a distinction. A personal example, the cause of my suffering was my drinking but it was not the source, the source was a deeper pain and what I was drinking to deal with. We must find the source and deal with that
- [ ] There is so much more, I will have to reread the third chapter
- [ ] The third should only come about if the first two are not available, IE his time in a concentration camp. He was not proposing people suffer unnecessarily
Back to the book
- [ ] He does recognize the biochemical component to neurotic/psychological disorders
- [ ] One must take responsibility for their attitude, for what they are willing to do, and how they are going to find meaning. Meaning is not given, it is found (I don’t know if that is a correct interpretation of his writing)
- [ ] The statue of responsibility on the west coast
- [ ] There is a lot that I am trying to absorb and wrote down. I will reread sections and add to the notes, here are the quick highlights
- [ ] Don’t pursue happiness, don’t seek happiness, happiness will come when you let go of that pursuit, happiness will come when you are giving yourself to others, when you are outside of your self, when you have meaning
- [ ] There is a great section about the role of sports: logo therapy can be a great coach
- [ ] Don’t try and win, don’t try to beat the other team, do your best and compete against yourself. The greatest competition is always against yourself. Fuck the other team, the competition is always against yourself. Try and be greater than yourself and you will win ever time. Let go of the outcome of winning and losing and be in the moment of self competition. I fucking love this way of looking at it
- [ ] Man needs a struggle, they need a challenge. Without it we become complacent, we loose touch with what we are capable of, we cease to have that rewarding obstacle, we loose touch with ourselves. Struggle and challenges are necessary, they are good, they teach us what we are capable of, they allow us to live. Frankel never advocates for unnecessary struggle or anything like what he endured in the concentration camps, he is advocating more for the rewards and virtues of the sport/bjj/doing difficult things that Rogan talks about. I have felt this emptiness in my life when I have not had goals or struggles that I am working to overcome
- [ ] There is an interesting section about past, present, and future. I may get the wording wrong but the past is eternal and the future is static, we get to decide what the future is by how we choose to process the eternal past. What I think the message is: we have to stop reliving the past, we cannot have it rule us, if it does we are putting the past in the future and forging our future based on our past. We let go and give meaning to our past, through that we are able to have a better future and live eternally
- [ ] I feel like logo therapy is mindful but I am not certain
- [ ] It reminds me of ‘forgiveness is the release of all hope of a better past’
- [ ] We exist and that existence is eternal, our fear existence is meaningful. Just because life is short and fleeting does not mean that it has no meaning. Our moment to moment existence is eternal. Once something has been given meaning, it cannot be undone, it retains meaning. Life ends but that does not take away from life.
- [ ] There is more to what I wrote above but I have to reread it but it is very Sasha Sagan and fucking beautiful
- [ ] He is constantly responding and refuting the existentialists
- [ ] He does not believe in the religious version of self transcending … he believes in the meaningfulness of self, the giving our self to something greater, that we are always getting out of ourselves and giving to others, we fill the void by finding meaning and getting out of ourselves. We fill with love
- [ ] Another section that I have to go back and reread to get the correct wording and meaning
- [ ] a pattern of behavior where you try to do the very thing that you are afraid of or are compulsively doing. If you are afraid of flying on planes, think of the plane crashing in the worst way, keep doing that and making it worse. If you afraid of public swearing try and sweat the worst you ever have. By doing this the behavior is lifted. It worked for me with my lisp, people kept asking me to say things with a lisp and then it went away and never came back
- [ ] A reiteration of the importance of humor in this technique. Humor is a uniquely human thing. Use humor to see the absurd and to laugh at your own behavior, lower the wall, let yourself be vulnerable and laugh
- [ ] A group setting where people can review their life, there traumas, and difficulties and then trying to find meaning and purpose through that, sounds like 12 step
- [ ] From moment to moment we always have the ability to choose our attitude and our response. ‘between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.’
- [ ] We have aggression, we choose to hate
- [ ] A section about intimacy and love
- [ ] Suffer bravely, it has a reason and a meaning
- [ ] I have to figure out the past/future/eternal thing because I think it is explaining how we overcome trauma and become the person we want to be, it is giving instructions
- [ ] This is possibly the best book I have read all year and in a long time, I want to keep coming back to sections and rereading, processing, and learning
07/2021
The Unheard Cry for Meaning
By Victor Frankel
- [ ] Rereading this because it was so powerful
- [ ] We consume drugs and alcohol because we are looking for meaning
- [ ] There are substantial studies that support the cry for meaning
- [ ] Yes we need financial and physical security but that it just a means to ultimately meet our search for meaning
- [ ] I am listening more than writing notes
- [ ] Meaning has a deep survival value
- [ ] To look for meaning is to be human, it is a distinctly human act. The search for meaning is our humanity
- [ ] Meanings are matter of personal discovery, they are an act and action
- [ ] Meaning is not self centered, finding meaning almost always is getting out of yourself. Committing to someone, something, a cause, a purpose, an idea, or an act, that is greater than the self
- [ ] Opportunities, changing reality through meaning - a powerful but unclear section that I book marked
- [ ] We give meaning to events, to our tragedies, to our sufferings. Even when things are out of our control, even when we can’t change the situation, we can still give meaning to it. We can still have meaning to our accomplishments, to our triumphs. Even in darkness we can find and have meaning. We can change our attitude
- [ ] I must give meaning to the breakup and the termination
- [ ] We can find meaning in things other than love and work
- [ ] We have meaning by changing. We decide to change and get better, that is and can be a powerful meaning. When we have no other options, we change ourselves
- [ ] The person that decides to change, that gives meaning to their suffering, lives a powerful life. Those that choose to let suffering destroy them, choose not to change, choose to have no meaning to life’s ordeals. They let the ordeals define them, instead of defining the suffering, giving it meaning, and ultimately growing and improving
Determinism and humanism
- [ ] Being human is being in the world. It is relating to and being of someone or something other than oneself
- [ ] Will man be determined by his conditions or will he determine himself despite the conditions
- [ ] Yes you have anxiety and fear but it is your attitude that matters, you have the ability to choose your attitude in the face of fear. That change makes all of the difference
- [ ] The human has to be open to self transcendence, they must be open to change, to meaning
- [ ] Stimulus, response, meaning, self actualization,
- [ ] A great section where he breaking down things, I would like to see a diagram of it
- [ ] A statue of responsibility on the west coast, responsibility to fulfill meaning, to self transcend - I thought the statue of responsibility was a Sagan thing, maybe it’s a common idea
- [ ] He talks a lot about responsibility in many of his works
How humanistic is humanistic psychology
- [ ] Our attitude
- [ ] Getting out of selfs
- [ ] Self detachment
- [ ] Man does not commit suicide if he sees something meaningful though it might be painful in survival
- [ ] Happiness can not be pursued, it must be ensued
- [ ] Paying too much attention to something - hyper reflection and hyper discussion
- [ ] Support groups/encounter groups can help with self transcendence
Sex
- [ ] To be in love is to self transcend, to make love is to self transcend
- [ ] There is intimacy in sex, sex is empty if it is merely masturbating on a partner
- [ ] Sex can be fun but love makes it better and gives it meaning
- [ ] I relate to this
- [ ] Language, written or verbal do not matter, instead it is the meaning that matters
- [ ] Man is looking for tension, for tasks, for accomplishments, even if these are just temporary pursuits of meaning. Man creates tension for stimulus and for meaning. Man needs difficult things to accomplish/do
- [ ] Man competes against himself, do not try to beat others, compete against yourself. Man is looking to see his limits, to see what he can become
- [ ] The past is the past and can not be changed
- [ ] Be proud of what you have suffered
- [ ] No one can take your accomplishments away from you, nor can they take the good or bad away, the memories, the positives or negatives. Just because something ends does not mean it was not meaningful
- [ ] Life is an enteral record and we get to rescue it and determine it
- [ ] The story of the past is what our future will become, the story we are of the past is our future
- [ ] Paradoxical intention - intend to do what you are afraid/don’t want to do and you won’t do it. Try to be outrageous and inappropriate, you won’t be
- [ ] If you worried about stuttering, try and stutter profusely. If you worried about public speaking, try and be a bad public speaker
- [ ] I am skeptical of paradoxical intention because it seems like letting go and letting the bad things happens, it is the opposite of what I am currently doing
- [ ] Paradoxical intention pokes fun at life, it reminds us to not take life so seriously. Humor is essential to it
- [ ] Humor is essential in logotherapy, the ability the laugh at ones own existence, the ability to laugh at the situation. Laughter is a part of self transcendence
- [ ] Paradoxical intention is not a panacea nor is it easy but it can be effective
- [ ] Anticipatory anxiety - anxiety of the event happening, fear of fear
- [ ] The final section is about paradoxical intention. I should use this on trying to say the most outrageous things and trying to have uncontrollable ADHD
- [ ] Dereflection
- [ ] I love this book and I love Frankl, I need to actively put this in to practice. My life is better when I am using logotherapy
- wow my notes look the same, I think the notes are better from the first reading