OfPonderingWandering

Can suffering be meaningful? It’s a strange question, but one that has stuck with me since I saw one of my favourite South Park episodes (Raisins S7 E14). 

In classic South Park style, Butters ends up falling in love with a showgirl from a Hooters-esque restaurant. The girl, sensing a good opportunity for money, leads an innocent Butters on. While on the side, a recently heartbroken Stan decides to join a group of local Goth kids, all to ‘complain about life’ and write depressing poetry. 

Later in the episode, Butters ends up getting dumped by the showgirl and starts to cry alone on the street. During which, Stand and the Goth kids find him and offer him a spot in their group. To which Butters replies, 

“Well, yeah, and I’m sad, but at the same time, I’m thrilled that something could make me feel that sad. 

It’s like, it makes me feel alive, you know? It makes me feel human. 

And the only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt somethin’ really good before. 

So I have to take the bad with the good, so I guess what I’m feelin’ is like a beautiful sadness. I guess that sounds stupid.” 

Beautiful-Sadness is a profoundly liberating idea. It works through a simple principle of reframing our suffering. Life is full of transience; people come and go, relationships ebb and flow, and our health slowly deteriorates. Yet, we get to experience all of this in the first place. 

We are not meant to feel bliss constantly, nor are we meant to feel sadness continually. Oftentimes, much like a pendulum, we can oscillate between these states. To truly feel loved, we must know what it feels like to be truly alone. 

I can even apply Beautiful-Sadness to my own life, because of my Type One Diabetes (T1D), I have suffered a lot in my life, but diabetes has given me so much more than just suffering. I have fulfilling connections with other individuals with diabetes, I volunteer in the diabetes community, and I’ve found something bigger than myself —a whole community that I both belong to and can commit to. It’s really beautifully sad isn’t it?

What is even more interesting is how beautiful sadness spurred a sort of ‘spiritual answer’ to my diabetes diagnosis. The earlier parts of my journey with T1D involved a kind of ‘existential frustration’ over the fact that I was a diabetic in the first place. But now, through joining a community where I am seen and validated for my experience, I feel like all of that pain has meant something. It was not a completely random occurrence, but rather something that taught me the importance of community. Furthermore, it even inspired my blog writing in the first place. 

Butters and I both found meaning within our suffering. Yet, we are not alone in this, in the next section we will learn about one of the most profound therapies out there; logotherapy, ‘The therapy of finding meaning.’ 

Logotherapy 

Logotherapy is a branch of psychology that focuses on meaning as a primary motivator for living and as a means to overcome suffering. Logotherapy was developed in the 1930s by Viktor Frankl, pulling inspiration from both Freudian psychology and Frankl’s experience as a holocaust survivor. 

Frankl describes the search for meaning as a force powerful enough for individuals to find purpose even in the midst of suffering, as Butters did. On top of that, Frankl describes three principles, methods, and techniques that will allow one to begin to find meaning within their life:

Principles of Logotherapy 

Will to meaning: Every person is free to achieve their purpose in life, fulfilling purpose fulfills one’s life. Yet, if internal/external barriers to fulfillment are present, the individual can fall into distress. 

Freedom of will: We have control over the choices we make in life. We can choose how our internal world is dictated and how we respond to external pressures. (Much like the Stoic dichotomy of control) 

Meaning of life: Frankl argued that life’s meaning is objective, that each and every person has a role to play, and it’s up to us to find it.

These three principles enable us to embark on our search for ourselves, providing us with a direction towards finding meaning. Then, once we see what our purpose in life is, we can fulfill it in methods such as: 

Methods of Logotherapy

Create or accomplish something.

Experience something or love someone fully.

Cultivate an adaptive attitude towards inescapable adversity.

For example, if your purpose in life is to give back to humanity. You may fulfill that purpose by creating a career as a teacher. Yet, out of all of these methods, “Cultivate an adaptive attitude towards inescapable adversity” stands out the most.

In Frankl’s book, ‘Man’s Search For Meaning’, Frankl describes suffering as a potential (but not necessary) route to meaning within one’s life. Essentially, where one learns to live with their suffering, adapting and growing regardless. Turning this back to Butters and I, we have both suffered, and we will both carry that pain (regardless of its cause) with us for the rest of our lives, yet we still live on. We can still be grateful for everything, for despite what feels inescapable, we are living proof that our stories did not end, even when it felt like Earth started spinning in the opposite direction. 

Then, you may wonder, how do we begin to cultivate purpose and meaning within our lives? We must start to break down the barriers that have been imposed on us. Logotherapy offers several techniques to initiate this vital process. 

Techniques of Logotherapy 

Socratic dialogue: The main idea behind Socratic dialogue is that we already possess our meaning deep within us. Yet, we are not consciously aware of it. Through careful observation of how we speak about things, we can begin a journey of self-discovery. A good example of this is working through beliefs we have picked up, “such as I am worthless.” Through repeated questioning, one can tunnel down and dislodge beliefs that trouble them.

Dereflection: This technique is used to guide our attention away from ourselves and out onto external stimuli. This allows us to combat periods of anticipatory anxiety- essentially providing a quick out from our minds. However, dereflection is not a distraction from our problem, but rather a change of direction (a debatable point). 

Paradoxical Intention: This is one of my favourites. Paradoxical intention is used to interrupt the fear circuitry that underlies phobias, anxiety, and compulsive disorders. By wishing for the fear to respond (during my presentation, I will try my best to sweat as much as possible), and through using humour in the process, the fearful situation becomes easier to handle. 

 Through these techniques, we can break through barriers (such as anxiety) that prevent us from finding our purpose. When we combine these techniques with the aforementioned principles and methods of Logotherapy, we will be well on our way to transforming our suffering into something meaningful and beneficial. 

Just as Butters taught us, and as my experience with T1D has shown, suffering doesn’t have to be a meaningless void. It can be the very ground where meaning takes root! Just like in Logotherapy, we can reframe, live with, and grow through our suffering- even find purpose within it. 

Suffering reminds us that we loved, that we cared, that we lived- both in the past and present. This is at the heart of what Butters was getting at, the purest proof of life is found within our beautiful sadness. 

Citations:

Logotherapy – Principles, Techniques, Examples & More

https://www.verywellmind.com/an-overview-of-victor-frankl-s-logotherapy-4159308