What makes life meaningful?
Frankl categorized meaningful activities into three types: meaningful contributions, meaningful experiences and meaningful attitudes.
In a way, meaningful attitudes are the most important, because the ability to choose your attitude even when all other choices are closed off to you proves that life can never be intrinsically meaningless. A person always has the responsibility to realize values, at the very least attitudinal ones, until his last breath. (p. 43-45)
As I’m reading this, two new thoughts occur to me. One thought is that although Frankl says that one always has the power to realize values, in fact life is intrinsically meaningful regardless of realizing any values at all. If a person is in a coma and cannot even realize attitudinal values, is this person’s life meaningless as a result?
My second thought relates to the meaning of values. One does something and through the act of realizing a value, life is made meaningful. But having the capacity to realize those values does not yet explain why these three categories of action are intrinsically valuable and meaning-producing acts.
Values make life meaningful. But what determines whether or not a value is meaning-producing?
I’ll leave this as an open question.