The Will to Meaning

          Albert Hoekstra spoke in a recent conference I attended. He mentioned Viktor Frankl, and his assertions that the essential drive in a person is the will to meaning. Freud identified this basic drive as pleasure, Adler as power, but Frankl disagreed and spoke of the will to meaning. He survived four concentrations camps during the Hitler era. He observed how some of his fellow prisoners died inwardly when they lost hope, and life was meaningless, long before the body collapsed.

          I find for my own sake, too, that I need a meaningful existence. Where there is no apparent meaning, I create it. Meaning is not to be equated with purpose, or purposefulness, although there is a clear connection at times. Purpose has a goal, has a sequence between cause and reaction, beginning and continuation, cause and effect, etc.

A forget-me-not from Polish woods

         There is much meaning in this, but I also find meaning in prayer, hope, dreams, in the beauty of the moment. I find meaning in creativity - not only in the product. Being on the way is meaningful, not only coming to my destination. Living today has infinite meaning. (That sounds like an oxymoron, I know, but it does illustrate my concept of time.)

I don't meander into the fields of psychology or psychotherapy. They are like deep lakes, sometime murky waters, and I don't like to get wet. My mother once commented and said: "Valid psychology is no more than common sense said with difficult words. All other is nonsense." Perhaps so. I don't know.

A friend I met on my walk

          I do think, however, that the field is given too much credibility. It is, after all, a rather exploratory field of study.

        

  Is it obvious what I mean when I talk of "meaning"? I do not think of reference to signs in the language, do not think of simple cognitive connection, to naming things, for example. I think of hope, joy, love, and all the things that grow from this: support, encouragement, dreams of the future... connections. This portrays my sense of meaningfulness

          The will to meaning is a need for meaning of this kind. The ultimate need is satisfied in God, in being connected with Him, being shielded by Him, being rescued by Him, being freed by Him, being still and let Him be the one who fights for you...

"Deut.31:8:

"And the Lord,

He is the One who goes before you.

He will be with you.

He will not leave you nor forsake you:

do not fear nor be dismayed."