Summary and Analysis of Man's Search for Meaning by Worth Books

Author:Worth Books
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: All rights reserved.
Publisher: Worth Books
Published: 2017-02-03T15:27:33+00:00

Postscript 1984: The Case for a Tragic Optimism

“Tragic optimism” is defined as the ability to remain hopeful in the face of Frankl’s “tragic triad”: pain, guilt, and death. Doing so will enable the user of logotherapy to do the following three things: turn suffering into achievement, use guilt to transform oneself for the better, and use the fact of life’s fleetingness to take greater responsibility rather than shrug it off as hopeless.

In life, one must find tragic optimism in order to overcome depression and nihilism. But this optimism is, in the end, not something one can choose or pursue. “Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.” This means finding a reason—finding meaning—to propel you through life, even in the most dire of circumstances. Unemployed people, who are the most likely to experience depression, find themselves happy and animated again once they volunteer their ample free time to good causes (libraries, food drives, local schools, or churches). In this context, the choice to remain down is the only thing preventing you from obtaining a new happiness. Though some sufferers may have extreme issues, Frankl points out that even if, through logotherapy and tragic optimism, a patient has only a one in a thousand chance of finding meaning, isn’t that reason enough to pursue it? In truth, the odds are much better than that.

Frankl points out the three symptoms of “mass neurotic syndrome”: depression, aggression, and addiction. The solution to such psychological phenomena centers on finding some way to be useful and, therefore, locating a wellspring of hope within one’s potentially dire or painful existence. This has to do with “the defiant power of the human spirit,” an element of deep yearning and need within the human soul that has no explanation in the sciences or in any other field. This spirit can lead us through the triad of pain, guilt, and death. Finding what offers you meaning can, if generalized across society, create a world populated with “independent and inventive, innovative and creative spirits.”

Need to Know: Maintaining hope in the form of tragic optimism is a great individual challenge that Frankl lays down before each of us. Pain, guilt, and death are universally suffered, and the response, increasingly over time, has been to revert to depression, aggression, and addiction. It is true, Frankl points out, that decent people in this world make up a minority, and that nihilists have a strong point when they shrug and say, “Why bother when everything is so random and chaotic, and decent people are few and far between?” But this is the ultimate logotherapeutic challenge: to see the possibility for love, goodness, and hope in the direst of circumstances. This is precisely the idea of meaning-therapy, to struggle for goodness and meaning in the darkness. The world will only worsen for all when that minority of decent people weakens and the nihilistic masses continue to thrive. Therefore, pursuing meaning in your own life is not only good for your own life and spirit, but is also a step toward forming a better world for all.

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