Is this going somewhere?

The short answer is "yes". The longer answer follows.

One of the survivors of the Nazi Holocaust was an Austrian, Jewish doctor by the name of Viktor Frankl. He was both an admirable and inspiring person. He was a psychiatrist actually and he developed a method of treatment for suicide-endangered individuals which he called Logotherapy. The therapy part is clear, but what does the "Logo-" mean in this context?

Obviously, the prefix derives from the Greek word logos, which can mean a lot of things, from idea to word to thought to argument to ... well, you get the point. It's the key feature of the word "logic", if you get my drift. The metaconcept to all these concepts of course is what we might describe as "meaning". Things that make sense, are logical, where the words and concepts fit together ... well, that's what we generally think of as "meaningful". Logotherapy could be described, as a result, as a therapy that searches for meaning.

Frankl's seminal work for us laypersons is Man's Search of Meaning (which he obviously wrote before the politically correct wardens got the say on the block). His approach? When people contemplating suicide would come (or were sent) to him, he'd ask them why they hadn't already killed themselves. If they answered, he would make clear to them that whatever that was the basis for identifying the reason why they were alive. If they had no answer, he suggested they just go ahead and do it. There was no reason in waiting. If we don't have a reason to live, why do we live at all?

Now, I know that some of you are gasping for air at this point, and others are chuckling, but if you think about it, the good doctor does have a point. Nietzsche once quipped that if we have a reason to live, a "why" for living, we can endure just about any "how". He was absolutely right, you know.

Of course, many of us, even those of us who don't have suicidal tendencies, have no clear awareness of why we think we deserve to be alive. We really need to stop and think about it for a moment. We really should get a clear idea of what we think our purpose on this planet is. Some of you will say it's to make money, or enjoy life, or play golf, or go for the gusto, or ... yes, this list too goes on and on. I don't want to be the party-pooper, but if we're honest -- which I know is tough for some of you -- are any of those reasons really "reasons"? To me, they sound more like excuses.

All the petty little pleasures we have are not the reason that we exist. It's a nice parlor game, but it's not the basis for leading a meaningful life. In other words, if you haven't done so already, I would strongly suggest that you take a moment or two (or more if necessary) and ask yourself if you have really ever done anything that justifies your consumption of the resources that you've consumed. Do you live according to some abiding principles, or do you just do what you have to do to get by?

Please don't get the impression that I'm judging ... nothing could be further from the truth. But, as Socrates once noted, the unexamined life is not worth living. When's the last time you took a good look at yours?