Do I Like Being Alive? Längle's Second Fundamental Motivation
Updated: Sep 3
Being able to be here is not enough. The first fundamental motivation gave us the body for living and a protected space, but the pulse is still missing, the warmth, that which makes existence habitable. Being merely able to be there would be, says Alfried Längle, a life as if in barracks: in barracks survival is possible, but it is not beautiful.
This is why existence sets us a second theme: we want more than simply to be in the world. We want our life to be good. We look for what makes it worth living. The guiding question of this second fundamental motivation of Existential Analysis is simple and goes straight to the heart of things: I am alive, but do I like living?
This article goes deeper into that second motivation: what it needs in order to develop, why emotions and the body are its territory, what happens when it fails, and how to begin strengthening it in everyday life.
Not only wondering that we exist, but feeling that it is good
A human being is only existentially at home when they feel that their life has value. They want things and people they can love, because otherwise their house is bare. And they want people who in turn love them, because otherwise their house is impoverished. They do not only want to marvel that they exist: they want to feel that it is good to exist.
To feel this we need, first of all, other people who have wanted us and who still want us. It is fundamental for existence to hear from another: “How good that you exist!” It warms us for a lifetime to have been able to feel that there was a mother who wanted me to live, that there was a father for whom it mattered that I existed. This turning-toward from others is the spark from which love for one's own life can be kindled.
Längle recalls here Nietzsche's phrase: “The Thou is older than the I”. We were conceived out of a relationship and grew within a relationship in the womb; we experience a yes to our life long before we can give it ourselves. Relationships are just as fundamental and necessary for life as a protected living space.
The “yes to life” is ours to speak
The turning-toward that comes from outside is important and warms our life, but it is not enough for us to unfold love for our own life. The “yes to life” we have to speak ourselves. It remains a personal task to sound the depth of life and draw out its value.
Often this happens spontaneously and unconsciously, but we can also consciously enquire after that yes: I am here, fine, but how is it for me that I am here? Is it good? Is it neutral? Is living a burden to me? Can I say, for myself and before myself: some things could be better, but fundamentally it is good that I am in the world, I agree with it, I want to live? And if I cannot say it, if I do not feel it, what am I missing? What is preventing me? What could I do to make it better?
That question, is it good that I exist?, sums up what Existential Analysis calls the fundamental value of life. If I can say yes to life, then what is experienced and the experiencing itself also become valuable. Because if it is not good to live, what value could the sunset, the concert, or love possibly have?
The three conditions: relationship, time, and closeness
In order to arrive at a true life within the conditions and demands of being-here, three conditions are needed: relationship, time, and closeness. It is worth pausing on each one, because each is cultivated in a different way.
Relationship: the bridge that binds us
A relationship with someone begins the moment we perceive the other. When we discover their being, this affects our own being in such a way that we inevitably have to relate to them. As soon as we notice a thing or a person, we can no longer avoid relating to them: from that moment on we can no longer “have no relationship” with them.
This basic form of relationship creates a bridge through which, by entering into relationship, a person comes to be connected with others. And the relationships that arise trace a frame and create a protection so that vital force can grow. This is why cultivating relationship means letting yourself be affected instead of keeping a safe distance: truly turning toward someone or something, and allowing it to touch you.
Time: the space where feelings are born
Life unfolds only in time. If we devote time to someone or something, life condenses there. To give time to someone or something means to increase its value, because a person's time is always the time of their life. Time nourishes relationships precisely because it is carved out of one's own life. And giving time to oneself means nourishing the relationship with oneself.
The time we devote is what makes it possible for emotions to arise; it allows enjoyment and joy to appear, and also lets us feel suffering and pain. This is why Längle defines it with a very precise image: time is the “space for relationships”, the “space for feelings”.
Taking time for yourself means having a relationship with yourself: resonating inwardly instead of switching off; allowing yourself joy, that is, savouring instead of consuming; and truly drawing the day to a close, celebrating instead of seeking more “action”.
Closeness: letting things leave their mark on us
The emotional movement that has arisen in a person can be intensified by establishing closeness with the corresponding object or person. Through closeness there occurs, so to speak, an “imprinting” of the object into our experience, and its image arises in the form of a feeling.
Feelings are born in the subject when something gives an impulse to the life within them and that life is set in motion. And it is precisely feelings that allow us to perceive values, that is, the significance that this or that object holds for our life. Without closeness, then, life is watched from the sidelines, but not lived.
Emotions and the body: the territory of this motivation
It is at this motivational level that the capacity to feel and to experience values is grounded. The values relevant to life, what is “good”, are perceived through feeling, not through reasoning.
Längle introduces a useful distinction here: the affect provoked by a stimulus (anger, amusement) is not the same as the emotion that emerges from within (joy). The first comes from psychodynamics; the second, from the personal. Learning to tell them apart helps us know what truly moves us.
And since feeling always happens in the body, this second motivation is profoundly bodily. Emotions live in warmth, in tears, in the jolt we feel when something moves us. Attending to that bodily capacity to feel is what transforms the flat statement “I am alive” into the warmer one: “and I like being here”.
When it fails: from grief to depression
When the conditions for giving and receiving turning-toward are missing, spontaneous protective reactions appear: above all withdrawing or turning away, but also activism (being “very busy”, chasing achievements without rest), huddling into groups, a rage that seeks to preserve the relationship, or a kind of paralysis and devaluation.
If the experience of fundamental value is not present, a person tends toward inner withdrawal and suffers under the emptiness and coldness of bare existence. A lack of assent to one's own life, an incipient “no” to life, characterizes the depressive experiential world. Whoever cannot feel the “yes to life” within themselves suffers under the worthlessness of existing.
Understanding grief is key here. Grief is the loss of contact with a value that life had presented to us, and it can be felt and worked through in a healthy way as long as we give ourselves the space and time to feel the loss. When grief is blocked, it can turn into depression. Längle sees persistently low mood as, in part, a wounded relationship with life and its values.
He illustrates this with the case of a twenty-five-year-old man who had been depressed for five years. At seventeen he had lost a great love and had never worked through that loss: at the time he was overwhelmed by the pain, and there was no one he could confide in. Over the years he lost himself more and more, drifted into a distance from himself, and came to function and complete his tasks without really being present inwardly. No tears came any more; the grief had never taken place. The treatment consisted in making contact with those places he could no longer feel his way toward on his own. Under the protection of the therapeutic relationship he was able to turn toward the great pain of the loss and to feel and hold the grief, accompanied and no longer alone. Through that turning-toward himself, his feeling was freed as if from ice, and he could enter into relationship with life again.
It is as though the depression had wanted to tell him, in Längle's words: “I, your life, want your turning-toward, even there where life hurts”.
Try this: notice something today that you genuinely enjoy, such as a song, your pet, or the face of someone you love, and give it your full attention for a moment, without worrying about what you still have to do that day. Relate to it, give it your time and your closeness, and notice how it feels in your body.
Try this as well: ask yourself honestly, is it good for me that I exist? And if the answer does not come, do not force yourself to manufacture one; ask instead what is missing, what is preventing it, and what small step might improve it. Fulfilment in this dimension is built from small acts of turning toward what is good, not from grand gestures.
From “I like being alive” to what comes next
The second motivation rests on the first and prepares the ones that follow. Whoever has their living space and their value of life can, in a certain sense, already live, and what they have is good and solid. But the personal note is still missing, one's own style: that is what the third fundamental motivation addresses.
When you notice that life has become grey, functional, or cold, it is worth returning to this level: checking whether you are giving yourself relationship, time, and closeness, and whether there is some grief you never allowed yourself to feel.
If something resonated with you as you read this — perhaps a tiredness that feels more like an emptiness, the sense of functioning without being present, or a grief that never took place — I want you to know that you do not have to walk that path alone. In my practice I accompany these processes through existentially oriented counselling and therapy and through philosophical consultation, two complementary ways of exploring, calmly and without rushing, the questions that truly matter. I work both in person and through online sessions, so that distance need not be an obstacle. If you would like to take a first step and rediscover your own “I like being alive”, I would be glad to welcome you.
Frequently asked questions
What is the second fundamental motivation? It is the second of the four conditions of a fulfilled existence according to Alfried Längle's Existential Analysis. It concerns our relationship with life, and its question is: I am alive, but do I like living? It rests on three conditions: relationship, time, and closeness.
What is the fundamental value of life? It is the deep experience that it is good to exist, which permeates all our emotions and relationships. It is captured in the question “is it good that I exist?” and forms the basis on which other things come to feel valuable to us.
What is the relationship between grief and depression? Grief is the natural response to the loss of a value, and it heals when given space and time to be felt. When grief is blocked or never takes place, it can develop into depression. This is why Existential Analysis understands persistently low mood as, in part, a wounded relationship with life.
How can the second fundamental motivation be strengthened? By cultivating the three conditions: genuinely entering into relationship and letting yourself be affected, devoting unhurried time to what matters, and allowing closeness with what moves you. It helps a great deal to savour instead of consume, and to celebrate instead of seeking more activity.
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If these questions resonate with you, my work in philosophical counseling and existential analysis offers a space for dialogue to think through how you are living and what life you want to build. If you would like to take that step, I invite you to get in touch.
References
This article is based on the work of Alfried Längle, Existenzanalyse und Logotherapie (Existential Analysis and Logotherapy), Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 2021, and Lehrbuch zur Existenzanalyse: Grundlagen (Textbook of Existential Analysis: Foundations), Vienna: Facultas, 2013. Längle developed Existential Analysis from the work of Viktor Frankl and is the founder of the International Society for Existential Analysis and Logotherapy (GLE-International).
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