Man's Search for Meaning | 10-Minute Book Summary

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We all wonder why we’re here, but does it really matter? In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl explains why meaning is important and how to find it.

Timestamps for video sections
0:00 Intro
1:08 How Prisoners Survived
2:29 Rich Inner Life
3:54 Future Goals
5:12 Freedom to Choose
6:04 The Value of Meaning
8:21 How to Find Meaning
8:49 Action
9:29 Love
10:40 Suffering
11:50 Conclusion

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[stevemartin]

Kudos for a very polished production of something worth talking about. Fromm's classic is a book I've read much about, but not yet read. Along with Hannah Arendt, their books are now in my Kindle reading list.

Just a passing thought ... I remember from the Bill Moyers / Joseph Campbell dialogues that Campbell, an acolyte of Jung, once said that it was not so much 'meaning' that people were in search of, but rather moments of resonance between our inner psychological narrative and the experiences we find ourselves in. When thinking about that, I realize that Fromm and Campbell are not really contradicting each other. They are using slightly different meanings of 'reason'.

In triangulating with the limits of logic, language, and reason as expressed with the likes of Wittgenstein or Gödel, or the transcendent experiences of art or ritual, I suppose the many conversational shades of meaning are what keeps the social sciences from being quantifiable in the same way that STEM fields might, but also are paths to more overtly metaphorical uses of language such as found in lyrics and stories.

'Meaning', 'freedom' — Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin had a lot to belt out about those words, as did Robert Heinlein about the rational beast.

[someonesomeone]

Frankl doesn't say how to find meaning though, just that you need it.