We start thinking of sense of life only in the face of death. A person feels the meaning of the life, but he doesn't estimate it intellectually. Sense - it is something hidden, something inside; it is of benefit of some activity. The meaning of sense is very close to the notion of purpose. The notion of sense we can take up as an aim, practical profit or benefit. In this case we notice it only when we lose it.
Existential crisis (crisis of a human being) is not considered as an intellectual discovery; it is more likely as the person realizes that he doesn't have something that belonged to him. A person starts thinking of sense of life when he has an existential anxiety.
Existential anxiety - is a mental anguish, pain, and anxiety about the existence of human beings.
Paul Trillich distinguishes 2 levels of existential anxiety - absolute and relational, and singles out 3 features of this feeling.
1. An anxiety of fortune and death is a relational level. It threatens, but there are ways to prevent it. An anxiety and fear of death - this is an absolute level of existential anxiety. Hopelessness terrifies, a person shudders with horror when he has a feeling of emptiness.
2. An anxiety of emptiness and inanity. On a relational level there is an opportunity to try to forget it and enjoy the life, but on the absolute level there is nothing to do.
3. Fear of fault and condemnation. Fault is a relational level of existential anxiety, condemnation is an absolute level.
In different times and in various psychic states there are different types of anxiety. As a rule, people have a feeling of inanity of life and want to commit suicide when they have a confrontation in the inner feeling of responsibility.
Victor Frankl distinguishes 3 main bents: bent for possession (sexual attraction and sexual self-actualization is also included here), bent for achievement of power, bent for sense attainment.
In different times and in different situations a person takes up one bent, tries other and then all of them. A person works very hard, he has an aim and he tries to fill vacuum inside him. But anyway then comes a 'victory depression'. A person achieves his aim and then has a feeling of existential vacuum.
