Man's Search for Meaning - No Really No Excuses

Just finished a re-read of Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and thought I would write down some purpley prosed praise to the author rather than paint a portrait of him to hang on my bedroom wall..... I cannot paint a stick figure

This book burns the weakest parts of my soul with a realism and an inspiring insight like some kind of existential napalm. It sticks to everything in my life that I have ever let slip into the void of an existential vacuum or worn on my sleeve. A giant dick of No Excuses slapped me in the face repeatedly while reading this book. If you ever wished to vent your frustration over your suffering, toil or depressed dread over any aspect of life perhaps imagine that Victor Frankl is among your audience.

He is a sage of the human condition. His philosophy, mind and body has stood among the waters of humanities darkest hour. He boils up an amazing stew of his own thought but throws in a little Nietzsche, Sartre, Spinoza, and Dostoevsky to flavor. If I can grasp anything from this book it is the realization that you must stand up against the tornado of everything that is this shitshow called modern life. Compelling one to find meaning among life like a Mendelian Monk changing the world, your world forever. Even when life has stripped you of all comfort, joy, status, personal identity, family, friends, work and even your own self conception there is still not only meaning to be found in the future but power and meaning to be found in that very suffering. Suffering can sharpen the very tools of responsive awareness of your world that allows one to cut meaty chunks of meaning out of it moment by moment. Whether youre climbing a mountain or digging your own grave you are compelled to cut, cut and recut your life’s meaning.

In a biography of an experience Frankl commandeers his greatest suffering to become the point at which he discovers everything necessary for achieving meaning and overcoming anything. Taking that meaning for him the completion of his manuscript and theories on logotherapy and translating it into a concise and constructive life changing psychological method for addressing a range of tears from housewives to suicide risks. In this effort Frankl transforms his analysis of the life and psychology of the concentration into a beating heart of solid philosophical gold. He offers something for everyone. No one can escape the added benefits the ideas of this book poses to a more thoughtful genuine life.

We are at a point in time when 40% of people seeking mental health help from professionals do not have a single biological or neurological identifiable disorder but rather just an existential vacuum that once used to be called the soul. For instance YAVIS(Young, Attractive, Verbal, Intelligent and Successful) make up over a 25% of Psychological Counseling treatment dollars. Mormon Housewives, and over achieving student "sufferers" now turn to Zombiefying drugs and pop psychology self help books for "answers" before they have even started to begin asking themselves the right questions. Others turn to worse options Ocyodon Coladas and meth for void assessment. We are a Prozac and Meth Nation for fake christ's sake. Man's Search For Meaning should be a required reading to be considered a Human Being.

I’ll admit I am butchering any calm cool account that this book deserves. Perhaps I am wearing the purple prose tinted glasses of recently read author adulation and if this comes off as such than I implore you to read the book and call me out.