Charity’s Reviews > Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning > Status Update

To say that meaning must be found is the equivalent to say that meaning is something to discover rather than to invent.

As we see Maslow's motivation there does not suffice here for what it is needed is not so much the distinction between higher and lower needs but rather an answer to the question of whether the individual goals are mere means or meanings.

Normally, however, the eye doesn't see anything of itself. Equally, by virtue of the self-transcendent quality of the human reality, the humanness of man is most tangible when he forgets himself and overlooks himself.

Therefore man is characterized by his search for meaning, rather than his search for himself. The more he forgets himself, giving himself to a cause or another person, the more human he is. And the more he is immersed and absorbed in something or someone other than himself, the more he really becomes himself.

Neurosis seems to be the toll that a crippled relationship to God takes on man.

Religion is the universal compulsive neurosis of mankind. - Freud