CONCEPT
The Meaning of the Moment
Frankl's term for the <em>specific, unrepeatable significance</em> each situation offers—meaning that cannot be generalized but must be discovered through <em>conscience</em> in the particular circumstances one faces.
The meaning of the moment is Frankl's insistence that meaning is always concrete, never abstract—this person, in this situation, at this time, facing this specific configuration of demands and possibilities. There is no general answer to "What is the meaning of life?" because life does not pose general questions. Life poses specific questions, addressed to specific individuals, requiring unique responses that only those individuals are positioned to provide. The meaning of the moment is discovered through what Frankl called conscience—the intuitive organ of meaning that senses what the situation demands and what the person is uniquely capable of contributing.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Frankl illustrated the concept through a camp memory: he and fellow prisoners discussed how to counsel someone threatening suicide. The question was: what general principle should guide the response? Frankl's answer was that there was no general principle. Each person's meaning was unique. One prisoner was sustained by love for a child who waited for him; another by a scientific manuscript he