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November 05 Man's Search for Meaning "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." - Friedrich Nietzsche The way I see things have yet been transformed to a new level. Finishing Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl after completing The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo has heightened my sensitivity to the intentions/reasons behind a person's decisions (speech, expression, course of action). Both books deal with the immediate surroundings of a particular person, which I shall term a "system" to facilitate the following ramblings/thoughts:
Armed primarily with these 2 ideas, I find myself being much more able to understand why a person does something in a certain way, and more importantly, determine his intentions, and (if necessary) correct either a) his course of action or b) problems in the system that is causing this person to behave in this manner. Very often, we see people doing certain things that conflict with our interests or beliefs. Although Man's Search for Meaning talks about Workplace Example Person from higher echelon demands for something seemingly unreasonable to you. Find out his intentions. Align your intentions with his, or vice versa. Check for systemic rules in place - Is this the norm? What is the standard expected? Is there a faster/better way of doing this? The alignment of intentions is especially important because many people, including myself, have knee jerk reactions with regards to negative stuff, i.e. becoming defensive or dismissing ideas. I think you can easily modify this example and apply it to interpersonal relationships as well. Social Example Hedonistic tendencies from both male and females usually arise from due to boredom. Boredom occurs when there is an absence of meaning, and that since Man naturally becomes frustrated when there is an absence of meaning, the frustration manifests itself in unhealthy habits. "The will to meaning is then replaced by the will to pleasure." Coupled together with societal norms (systemic influences, rules), people become easily disillusioned and end up indulging in decadent activities. Having said that much, most of it is based upon my own deductions and what little I have understood from the stuff I've read. I'm in no way trying to plagiarise the writers' hard work, but instead can be said to be oversimplifying their theories into a few paragraphs, and adding in a bit of my own experiences. Finally, what I've wrote down so far is actually what goes on in my head whenever I attempt to "analyse" almost anything I observe on the people around me. It seems to answer most of my questions and sometimes (well, rarely) allows me to pinpoint flaws and give advice to those who come to me for some. TrackbacksThe trackback URL for this entry is: http://pstan.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!463B90FF83A54F35!1304.trak Weblogs that reference this entry
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