Frankl. Ultimate Meaning of Life

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Rock Merjudio
2004 13676


Man’s Ultimate Meaning of Freedom According to Frankl

Being a prisoner in Auschwitz, Frankl had learned many things about the psychology of prisoners who are in the process of undergoing the three stages of prisoner life. The three stages are the period of time when one becomes a prisoner, the one when the prisoner accepts his fate and try to abide by it and the one when the prisoner finally achieved freedom. Over the time Frankl was imprisoned, he learnt what freedom actually mean to him. This is shown when they were liberated and they did not feel any supreme joy about them being free.

The experience of camp life showed Frankl that man really does have a choice of action, be it good or bad. This is freedom, and freewill. Apathy could be overcome and irritability can be suppressed. To Frankl, even if he is not free physically, he has spiritual freedom, of independence of mind that saved him through such very terrible conditions of psychic and physical challenges. There are many forms of freedom but one freedom can’t be taken away from anyone and that is the freedom to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance. In one’s life, there are many choices to make. These choices will offer consequences of unlimited possibilities sprouting from the actions you take. As stated in the book, an inmate’s nature and disposition is not really due to the camp influences alone, but to one’s inner decision.

Frankl also said that one’s inner freedom cannot be lost as he saw the martyrs who die in the camp. It can be said that they were worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom that makes life meaningful and purposeful. It is just that suffering and death can’t be taken away in one’s life because human life can’t be complete without it. To make you feel that you’re alive, one must suffer and surely one who died will always be said as one who once lived.

The way man accepts fate whether it is accompanied by suffering makes him brave, unselfish and dignified. On the other hand, if he refused it, he may lose his human dignity and be no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for one to decide what he will do. It is one’s freedom to take the path which he thinks is right. This decides whether one is worthy of his sufferings or not. This situation is not only seen in concentration camps. Everywhere, man is confronted with fate, with the chance of achieving something through his own suffering.

A man who could not achieve his provisional existence was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. This is why when we are still little; our parents will sometimes ask us what we want to be when we grow up. An unemployed worker, for example, is in a similar position. His existence has become provisional and in a certain sense he cannot live for the future or aim at a certain goal. These men lost every consciousness of time like the prisoners which don’t know when they were brought to camp and when did they achieved release. They experience an existence without a future and a goal.

One of the prisoners, which Frankl met while marching whispered that he had felt as though he were marching at his own funeral. His life had seem to him absolutely without a future. He regarded his life as over and done, as if he already died. This example shows loss of hope. A man who cannot let himself decline because he could not see any future goal found himself occupied with retrospective thoughts. These men often look back at the past to escape away from the present but in erasing the present of its reality lies a certain danger which is the tendency to overlook some opportunities to make something positive in life. They preferred to close their eyes and to live in the past. Life for such people became meaningless.

What we really need is a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and teach despairing men that it did not really matter what we expected from life but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking what the meaning of life is but instead to think ourselves as those who were being questioned by life. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answers to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. These tasks differ from man to man and form moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his unique task in life. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way which he bears his burden. This thought can keep a suffering man from despair. We need the “why” for us existence and we will be able to bear almost any “how”.

But a liberated man cannot shun away all of spiritual care. It would be wrong to think that a liberated man is free from all obstacles. But the crowning experience of it all, for a liberated man, is the wonderful feeling that after all the suffering he has endured, there is nothing he need fear any more except God.