Orientation Toward the Future

		Alles Vergängliche	All passing things
		Ist nur ein Gleichnis;	Are merely symbol;
		Das Unzulängliche,	The unattainable
		Hier wird’s Ereignis;	Here turns event;
		Das Unbeschreibliche,	The indescribable,
		Hier ist’s getan;	Here it is done;
		Das Ewig-Weibliche	The Eternal Feminine
		Zieht uns hinan.	Draws us along.
		[Goethe, Faust]

In Viktor Frankl’s meaning-oriented psychotherapy—he called it logotherapy—the highest level of the human being is the spiritual; it strives for meaning. The lower levels, the somatic and the psychic, represent forces that push us to achieve physical and social ends in the here and now, but meanings exerts a pull on us. And in the process of following our innate perception of something beyond us, we look to the future.

It struck me this morning that using one of the time dimensions (thus past, present, and future) does not express the longing for meaning that we feel adequately. To the extent that it does, future must be understood as something that we never actually achieve while we are on this plane. The future acts on us in a mysterious way, but it disappears precisely as it arrives. It turns into the present. And as the present fades with the same mysterious diminution into the past, that which has been and that which is yet to come can both be viewed under the species of eternity. Quite consistently, Frankl views the achievement of values in the present; and once realized, they are permanently saved in the past—which is immune to the forces of the flux in which we actually live, the Now.

The notions—these contrasts between what we are, what we seek, and what we actually achieve—reward the effort to contemplate them. Flickers, glimmers, bright sparks of intuition arise in us that we are not really time-bound creatures at all but beings of another order experiencing here and now a novel process in the experience of which we grow as souls.

The Will to Meaning

The phrase is most closely linked to Viktor Frankl’s psychotherapy, but it was first articulated, in his own usage, by Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), the Christian existentialist. In this context meaning translates into value, belief, and purpose—all viewed as individual, internal, subjective achievements. The will to meaning is the inner striving for something altogether absent in objective reality—out there. Meaning, in this existential sense, is the very core of Frankl psychotherapy, which he calls logotherapy. The affirmation of meaning, in Frankl’s work, is about as close as one can get to an affirmation of human transcendence in secular terms—but even a superficial reading of Frankl reveals that he means just that. Human beings cannot be adequately described when ignoring the deeply felt will to meaning present in us. We have a soul.

The particular formulation here derives from competing schools of psychotherapy: Freudian, the will to pleasure, usually rendered as the pleasure principle, and the Adlerian, the will to power. Freud’s work was centered in the sexual drive, the Adlerian on the inferiority complex. Frankl does not deny that drives exist but classifies them as on a lower, biological level, than the quest from meaning, which rises above this level. Even the person most adequately adjusted sexually or in status will experience neuroses arising from life’s seeming meaninglessness. Indeed, in Frankl’s view that state, which he calls the existential vacuum, was the dominant neurosis of his time, the twentieth century. Does it continue to loom large today?

Meaning is transcending, in Frankl’s view, because it can illuminate and overcome even the greatest suffering, not least terminal suffering, by the vital acts of endurance and affirmation of the individual. All of his books are quite accessible. A good example is Man’s Search for Meaning. Do not, however, expect to find “the meaning of life” explained, chapter and verse. That remains an individual responsibility—another important word in Frankl’s thought.

The First Six Oxen

Reading again last night one of the books of Viktor Frankl, the Austrian founder of Logotherapy,  a psychotherapy centered on Meaning, I was surprised to wake up this morning reminded of the famous ox-herding pictures of Zen Buddhism. That puzzled me for a while until the association began to make sense. On that in a moment.

The ten ox-herding pictures are an important part of Zen teaching, almost unavoidable for anyone who looks into the subject. They represent the soul’s development in stages, in which the ox represents the quest itself—but only for a while. The pictures we now have came from a Chinese artist, Kakuan Shien; he lived in the twelfth century and himself copied some even earlier depictions. What the ox actually represents is not defined in the original verses that accompany the images. Perhaps it is the quest itself, becoming more and more dominant. I provide this link to a site where the images are shown with the traditional verses beneath. The essence is that the ox must be found, caught, tamed, and finally ridden—and after that it is forgotten but—and it is an important but—the final source (of something) is ultimately reached. After that, in the last image, the disciple once more returns to society. The eighth picture, when both the ox and the self have been transcended, is blank.

Now for my association. I am a great admirer of Frankl’s psychotherapy. It is the only one that encompasses the whole human being, including the soul, the human being’s transcending core. But Frankl (1905-1997) was a transitional figure. Freudian and Adlerian analysis were dominant as he forged his own views. The Freudian is based on the pleasure principle, the Adlerian on the will to power or status. They are lower drives which, when frustrated, can produce psychiatric problems. Frankl sternly critiqued both. His own view was that the deepest human drive is to discover meaning. But in the process of ministering to the human need for the transcending, a border, you might say, must be crossed—between the physical, where medicine mostly operates, and the spiritual, where the cry for meaning arises. And Frankl had to stand astride that divide. He wished to help his patients but could not enter the religious ranges that open up as soon as Meaning is written with a leading cap.

Therefore, in light of Kakuan’s ten ox-herding pictures, Frankl could only deal with the first six—wherein the patient is searching, first without knowing much but in agitation, then by following tracks, then sighting the ox, and so on. But Frankl had to stay with the ox until the patient could ride it. He could not go beyond that stage. Whatever follows then is up to the patient, helped by religious guides. Therefore Frankl’s own series ends a little prematurely—and reading his book, his hesitation to go on had reached me consciously. And then, while sleeping, my hidden self produced the images that explained my sense of unease. There are ranges where the MD can no longer help you.