Man's Search For Meaning

In Man's Search For Meaning Frankl states that the prisoners who gave up on life and commited suicide did so because, with the situation they were put in and the day to day torture they went through, they saw no reason to live. The only prisoners who resisted giving up and continued to live were the ones that saw hope for the future. They found their menaing and reason to live on. As Frankl said, "..the attempt to restore a man's inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some future goal. Nietzsche's words, " He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how," "

In the movie  La Vita è Bella,  Roberto Benigni's character truely embraces  Frankl's philosophy. The moment he figures out that he and his son are being put into a concentration camp Roberto saw his meaning and his future. His reason for being alive and pretending everything was okay was his son and his wife and the possible future of all of them coming out of the concentration camp together.

Our Stranger Meaning

     
     I believe that life can have meaning and we can create meaning in our lives. I'm not sure if we have any preset purpose or that we would be able to figure out if we do.
     When I asked myself what I found meaningful in my life my family automatically popped up in my head, but I also think something that's meaningful to my life is creating a meaning for my life. Everyone faces death and I realize that it may be the only real experience that connects all human beings, but you can't tell me the time inbetween birth and death means nothing. We are a speck in human history, but that does not mean that what we do won't effect others in our present or future. When you think about people like Ghandi, Albert Einsten, Martin Luther King Jr., the people in their lives and any other person that has made a big impact, were their lives just meaningless specks in time?
    I think it's important to do something with your life. Enjoy it, help others along the way and believe in something.

Voltaire and Camus are voting for.....

At the end of the book Candide there was an emphasis on cultivating your garden. I took this message as each individual should live their own lives and working to improve themselves. So I think that Voltaire would vote for the Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party has a platform based on individual rights as they state on their website.

"We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual."

"We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose."

(http://www.lp.org/platform, Nov 2, 2012)

They go on to state things like people should have the right to marry who they want, abortion should be a choice and that education and health care should be provided by the free market. Their stance overall to me is that the government shouldn't be involved and everyone should be free to go about their business.

As for Camus I'm not sure if he would find meaning in voting. I think he might vote if somehow he felt inner meaning in voting or felt it was important to some life mission, if he felt he did have a life's mission.