Man’s Search for
Meaning:
An Introduction to
Logotherapy
Viktor E. Frankl
p. 176-7
…According to logotherapy, we can discover
this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by doing a deed; (2) by
experiencing a value; and (3) by suffering.
The first, the way of achievement or accomplishment, is quite
obvious. The second and third need
further elaboration.
The
second way of finding a meaning in life is by experiencing something, such as a
work of nature or culture; and also by experiencing someone, i.e., by love.
The Meaning of Love
Love
is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his
personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human
being unless he loves him. By the
spiritual act of love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in
the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, that
which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his
love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these
potentialities. By making him aware of
what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come
true.
In
logotherapy, love is not interpreted as a mere epiphenomenon* of sexual drives
and instincts in the sense of a so-called sublimation. Love is as primary a
phenomenon as sex. Normally, sex is a mode of expression for love. Sex is
justified, even sanctified, as soon as, but only as long as, it is a vehicle of
love. Thus love is not understood as a mere side effect of sex but sex as a way
of expressing the experience of that ultimate togetherness that is called love.
A
third way to find meaning in life is by suffering.
*epiphenomenon – a phenomenon that occurs as
the result of a primary phenomenon.
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