A Different Kind Of Value

Viktor Frankl is my favorite existentialist. Why? Because he talked about work and suffering a lot? Because he made it through a concentration camp with a constructive view of humanity and its potential to achieve value? For whatever reason, I recently picked up my yellowed copy of The Doctor and the Soul, which has passages underlined in several colors of pen, a worn spine and many dogeared pages. A few of his words are apropos as ever.

Frankl described three kinds of value that can be had by us humans:

• Creative Values which are values realized in creative action. This is our normal master-of-the-universe activity, where people like you and I create and control the world.
• Experiential Values which are realized in receptivity toward the world. I like this passage:

… the greatness of life can be measured by the greatness of a moment: The height of a mountain range is not given by the height of some valley, but by that of the tallest peak. In life, too, the peaks decide the meaningfulness of life, and a single moment can retroactively flood an entire life with meaning …

• Attitudinal Values lie in man’s attitude toward the limiting factors upon his life. He says an impoverished existence – one which is poor in creative and experiential value – still offers a last, and in fact the greatest, opportunity for the realization of values. What is significant is a person’s attitude toward their fate… the courage he manifests… the dignity he displays… is the measure of his human fulfillment.

The good news, and the reason I like Frankl so much, is that you can never go to zero! There is value in every situation. As he points out, it requires some spiritual elasticity. (That’s why they invented tequila in my opinion. Or maybe brandy for wintertime here in the frozen north.) So the blog took a hiatus and I may have printed a little attitudinal value lately, but I’m back in for 2016. Happy New Year.