Existential Vacuum can be Overcome by Finding Meaning of Life - Research Paper Example

Frankl stresses on the importance of meaning of life repeatedly in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” and how attaching a real meaning to life can save one from the clutches of existential vacuum and escape the path to nihilism forms the main bulk of this essay. Existential vacuum is basically a disturbed psychological condition that results when one deliberately negates the meaning of one’s own life, loses interest in life and willingly enough gives up all the radiant aspirations to build up a better future.

Defiant rejection of meaning of life, which plays a major role in stimulating the development of existential vacuum. . The state of a person suffering from existential vacuum can be related to the state of a person who is imprisoned in a closed cell for numberless days and is unable to think or function properly, let alone build constructive plans for the future. Existential vacuum cuts down all the thinking abilities of a person and leaves him/her to be utterly incapable of attaching a meaning to his/her life and trust his/her own instincts rather than copying other people or doing what others demand of him/her.

In the present industrialized world, people have engrossed themselves in maintaining their high life standards to such level that concepts like individualism, meaning of life, sacrificing for others, embracing sufferings, and high moral standards have become more of old-fashioned despised fantasies than anything. This fake pattern adopted by people which results in negative take at things and development of existential vacuum, actually induces Frankl to lay phenomenal stress on searching for the meaning of life so that one can follow a right path that can help in achieving feats that are entirely unachievable when the meaning of life is deliberately stifled by oneself in futile pursuit of a self-centered life and worthless pleasures.

Industrialization and loss of traditional values are identified by (Cox and Klinger) to be the most common causes of existential vacuum. According to Frankl, as the concept of individualism became significantly reduced, people became less reliant on social traditions and their own instincts which reinforced their behaviors, due to which they rarely know what to do themselves. This leads to a state of loss of confidence, paranoia, loss of