If there is any conviction shared by sensitive and rational people in our times and culture, most probably it is the view that our civilisation finds itself in the throes of a crisis. Explanations of the genuine cause of this crisis as well as attitudes toward it vary. One, which in our view seems to have its sights set on the very crux of the matter, is the explanation that the crisis has been caused by the indisputable hypertrophy of external, materially mediated dominance. This gradually generated an atrophy of a life-giving internal, spiritually conditioned understanding as if the internal sources of human life have virtually been exhausted for us. Indeed, in various contexts of our spiritual life we come up against manifestations of relativism, superficiality and loss of perspective. It is evident that the question whether this is still "merely" a crisis of growth is closely associated with another, namely, whether there is any human dimension at all to that growth.

Our historical process has led to far-reaching crisis situations which face humankind as a whole (ecology, economy and global military-political problems), by various small or large groups of people (discrimination, manipulation, disinformation), and by an ever growing number of solitary individuals (poverty, diseases, social marginalization, deterioration of interhuman relations, devaluation of spiritual values). Attempts at remedying such situations usually are confined to endeavors to identify mere symptoms; what exceeds the possibilities of external control generally is neglected to the detriment of the key, intrinsically human need to understand one’s self and one’s actions, even though such a need usually is most acutely felt by humans in situations of the deepest crisis. An externally oriented civilisation is neither able nor willing to admit that a path can be found out of extreme situations, either with the help of "the best social order" (which on the contrary — in totalitarian and military regimes — tends to provoke such situations on a large scale), or with the provision of the greatest material wealth and well-being (which serves rather to multiply them in rich societies and social strata by lowering the threshold of sensitivity).

Certain elementary extreme situations, inevitable for human life and its maturation are associated with the natural course of life, but often we no longer know how to cope with these. In our present era people seem to have somehow forgotten the traditional spiritual strategies and tactics of coping with these extreme situations (documented by myth, theology and philosophy). There is no longer an inner connection to model personalities in extreme situations (Jesus, Buddha, well-known saints and martyrs); no rehearsal situations (initiation rites, exercises, etc.) are available; even simple human empathy and active solidarity with people in extreme situations also have disappeared. On the other hand, the capacities of mental hospitals, jails, orphanages and other specialized institutions have been expanding, various repressive measures have been widespread, and there are mounting tendencies to make up for the utter lack of meaning in life with a hectic scramble for power and wealth. This is at the cost of bringing about new situations of major crisis proportions, neither natural nor inevitable, which are increasingly difficult to cope with in any meaningful manner.

A merely externally conceived defence against extreme situations, which leaves all the spiritual possibilities for coping untouched usually results in a drastic impoverishment of humanity and a further reproduction of such situations at ever new levels. Extreme situations may be countered efficiently and productively solely with the help of internal, intrinsic sources. Only therefrom is it possible correctly to stipulate the choice of external means. An authentic capacity to carry out what would amount to a genuinely helpful external intervention is always commensurate with internal human maturity on the part of the decisive agents.

That is why the cultural-paradigmatic importance and profound historical human need of all such individual activities and social movements has been growing. Such activities and movements often are tied deliberately to certain spiritual traditions. Irrespective of their economic and social context, from profound inner resources and at the cost of one’s own sacrifices they are able to provide way out of various modes of natural as well as unnecessary extreme threats to humanity anywhere and anytime (e.g., the order of Mother Theresa of Calcutta or the Czechoslovak Charter 77 Movement).

The following philosophical study is dedicated to such personally motivated and involved people struggling for human dignity in adverse circumstances.

The individual sections: existences, humans, values, meaning and being, are meant as thematic probes into the contexts, which are of key significance for the issue under scrutiny.

If we approach everything receptively and with critical detachment from our own utilitarian intentions, we discern existences in their original inner self-determination, integrity and irreplaceability. They present themselves to our eyes in their independent identity as emanating from the depth of being and aspiring to the heights of being. This makes evident that characterization of this or that existence can in no way be exhausted through its mere situatedness: no existence is "soluble" within this or that situation, it is never completely shaped or determined by it; in changing situations it remains more or less itself or ceases to exist in its identity. This is ontologically primary and, in view of the possibilities of any existence in extreme situations, is substantially significant.

It has two different aspects: external and actual, which stand out directly against us. This is given by the specificity, differences and clear-cut particularity of existence, which outwardly tends to develop its identity vis-a-vis other existences. The internal and potential, given the independence of each existence, can only be surmised in its entirety. This inheres in the inimicability, inaccessibility and inexhaustibility of the substantial specification of the given existence, which is rooted internally in the creative depths of being. Due to this fundamental identity, existents encounter other existences as they find themselves in various situations. But they do so through their creative, internal and potential identity stemming from being which is beyond any situatedness, and as such is moulded solely by the interaction of existences.

It seems therefore that the creative current of being flows, as far as existences are concerned, from the inside outwards: for the initial point of each existence lies in its inner identity, received in profound dependence on being, while the impact of a situation on existences is determined only by their interrelations. Seen in this light, a situation affects existence principally secondarily and outwardly. The dependence of existences on a situation is conditioned by the dependence of a situation on existences which jointly create it, actively or passively.

Under the term situation we may describe the sum total of external conditions and circumstances, under which existence as the "center" of a situation happens. At the same time, especially as regards extreme situations, it is of vital importance that these external conditions and circumstances are not primarily constitutive of what exists or happens, although they may support or suppress existence, action or even the very origin of anything.

Whether a situation affects existence positively or negatively, whether it is more or less in harmony with it, as is an apple tree in a fruit garden, or in conflict with it, as is an apple tree in a building site, is for each existence a crucially important feature of its situation. An extremely unfavorable situation, wherein the very identity of existence is threatened up to its actual limit of resistance, beyond which its being-related potential to perfectibility dissolves, is most accurately designated as its extreme situation.

The ontological necessity of the emergence of extreme situations evidently ensues from the fact that existences do exist in situations. Given its external particularity and hence its actual limitations, no single existence can cope with an unlimited number of factually possible situations. The paradoxical ontological possibility of surviving extreme situations, on the contrary, emanates from the fact that existences do exist out of being and for the sake of being. Its internal determination is potentially inexhaustible. It has emerged from the creative depths of being in which each existence is rooted, and proceeds towards the transcendent heights of being to which it is attracted. On this basis existence may hold out even under an extreme situation.

Therefore, extreme situations are both exceptionally dangerous for the identity of existences, and immensely stimulating in terms of creativity and development. Being is the source and goal of the growth of their independence and integrity. In time, everything inanimate, animate and conscious gradually grows out of being into the space of the world, which is pervaded with the struggle for growth in being at different levels of its reception.

Just as an extreme situation is one in which the innermost identity of any existence is revealed and subjected to trial, a human extreme situation is one in which all this concerns humans. In an extreme situation men and women also are threatened in their own constitution, which they alone have acquired from being.

This signifies that exposure to extreme situations will most clearly show which particular characteristics are actually specific to him in terms of "species", what is intrinsically their own and what eventually matters most to them. Their extreme situations are highlighted and stimulate their humanity due to this having been jeopardized.

All subhuman animate existences demonstrate their identity most prominently in situations in which their life is threatened (a snail will withdraw into its shell, a gazelle will run, a tiger will fight) for their innermost intrinsic characteristics serve their own survival in a specific manner. A threat to life is identically a threat to the intrinsic characteristics in a live subhuman existent; their identity neither survives nor in any way extends beyond their physical existence. As with a inanimate existences where an extreme situation poses a threat to their intrinsic mode of inanimate existence, a situation involving a threat to one’s life is the specific extreme situation of subhuman animate existences. This provides a point of departure for identifying the extreme situation of the person as a live and conscious being.

An animal which finds itself in a life endangering situation tries to escape quite unambiguously and at any cost, although sometimes in a mediated fashion as dictated by the instinctive attachment to one’s offspring, mate or herd. Under such a situation humans do not always behave so unequivocally. Their attitude to their own life is not determined solely by instinct, but is freer and more complicated. Humans are capable not only of saving their own life, but also of sacrificing it; they are capable of running the risk of losing their life and even of giving it up in passive resignation.

Such a free and differentiated approach attests to the fact that humans do not identify what they intrinsically are with their physical existence; somehow they can confirm their humanity independently of their own survival, sometimes even against it. Evidently, they strive to exist somewhat differently than a biological entity, trying to transcend their physical existence. To put it in positive terms: they strive for a spiritually independent existence. Only on such a basis is it possible to compare life with other values and freely avail oneself of it.

This spiritual existence implements a purely human possibility of self-transcendence through a principal attachment to values. Humans can sacrifice or save their life because of something that exceeds the value of biological life. That is, because of values towards which their life aspires, on which it is based, in which humans invest, with which they identify themselves, and to which they attach supreme meaning. Only a threat to such values — "sublime" or "mundane", but always vitally important — constitutes an extreme situation characteristic of man. If the principal values of his life have been destroyed or devalued, one’s bare life retains value only if and as one is capable of retaining at least some hope of discovering or creating new values. Then life becomes, provisionally, a supreme value only in the name of those unknown values and in linkage with them.

From a human viewpoint, mere survival does not appear to be an end in itself. It is not something absolute or unconditioned, but rather something to which one can assume a personal attitude; that is, one which is not arbitrary but spiritually free and connected with values. The fact that one carries within oneself something one protects more than one’s own life and without which one’s life would lose its meaning and humanity points to the conclusion that, unlike other live beings, one’s specific extreme situation involves a threat to values which one regards as supreme. A threat to life is perceived by humans as an extreme situation only insofar as it jeopardizes also their possibility of living for certain values. In a situation of a total value vacuum and hopelessness life tends to become virtually irrelevant to a human person.

Thus, one may attach to a certain value, rather than to one’s bare life, that which is intrinsically one’s own, one’s most profound identity, namely, independence and integrity. This reveals the ontologically unique spiritual nature of the person. What seems to be significant in extreme human situations, therefore, is not any boundary of human potential for biological survival, but rather a limit of this or that individual’s value orientation and attachment.

Freedom, health, honor, property, loyalty, power, friendship, enjoyment work, success — every human individual is known to live in the name of a certain basic value orientation which integrates one’s life. From one’s prevailing attitude to life can be deduced one’s supreme, vitally important values, whose threat inevitably takes one into an extreme situation.

The innumerable possible types of threats posed to various vitally significant values may be systematically classified by this three level scheme:

I. threat to the embodiment of a given value,

II. loss of the embodiment of a given value,

III. doubts cast on the validity of a given value.

1. The first level or threat posed to a vitally significant value — an extreme situation of the first degree — arises when the embodiment of such a value is seriously threatened. Such an embodiment is that to which such a value is ascribed: a valuable thing, person, relationship, status, activity, etc. — collectively expressed as "goods". For instance, if I appreciate friendship or human dignity or property as the supreme value, then the embodiment of this value is my friend, or my civic rights, or my bank account. If such a threat is to fall into the category of extreme situations, the only or the most important embodiment of this supremely significant value must be threatened and it must be extremely difficult to avert such a threat.

The imminent destruction of what is or, for a certain individual, can be genuine fulfillment — a lively accomplishment or implementation of one’s uppermost values in life — tends to provoke massive defensive reaction. One applies oneself to saving the situation, which is not yet totally lost, even though it is so unfavorable that in order to retain a chance of changing it man has to stake everything. After all, he has got nothing to lose because an extreme situation is a situation posing a threat to what is most valuable to him, with which he is tied in a life or death relationship, and from which the very value of all the other things more or less derives.

An extreme situation of the first degree is therefore marked by its risky and demanding, though still practicable, changeability; this, in turn, encourages man to try to avert the danger at any cost. What must be done by the individual, who through this struggle for the existence of the embodiment of his cherished value fights for his own integral existence, is to mobilize as much courage as possible.

One will either succeed in saving the situation, in restoring the original state of the undisturbed existence of the "good" involved (regaining one’s friend, civic rights or bank account), or one will not.

One who has not managed to save the situation finds oneself in an extreme situation of the second degree — which could arise directly, without passing through the first stage. This involves loss of the embodiment of a vitally important value. Its eventual restoration (if this be at all feasible, as where, for example, no exclusive personal relationship is involved) usually is a long-term affair and does not depend solely on one’s own activity.

In an extreme situation of the second degree the value itself (friendship, human dignity, property) is not destroyed. On the contrary, it remains valid and one continues to regard it as one’s own supreme value and maintains one’s intrinsically serious attitude in its regard. But the value’s embodiment, through which the individual participated in that particular value (or intended to so participate), no longer exists or has become definitely inaccessible.

In these terms there is nothing to save at the given moment: the original state of affairs cannot be restored and it is uncertain whether the value itself will ever see its alternative embodiment. It is thus crucial to bear the situation. This means enduring the profound contradiction: on the one hand, is that which is most desirable for the individual, what "should be" in order to sustain one’s integral existence. On the other hand, there is that which simply "is" under the given situation, regardless of the conditions of one’s most intrinsic identity and of the possibilities of one’s truly human life. This contradiction, which must be suffered, involves the existence of an abstract meaning of value and the non-existence of its concrete embodiment. The value indispensable for the life of an individual, which in its embodiment always is bound up intimately with his or her life, in an extreme situation of the second degree loses its lively and impressive particularity. It is preserved solely in one’s mind as a powerless idea, as nothing but a destructive awareness of what an individual cannot live without.

Extreme situations of the second degree, unlike the preceding stage, are characterized by the impossibility of salvaging the original state. The only way out here is to turn towards the future possibilities of finding a new embodiment of the self same value. That is why such a situation necessitates a maximum mobilization of hope. For one who attaches the meaning of his life to friendship or human dignity or property, it is certainly difficult to live on his own or in prison or in impoverished old age, hoping for new encounters, for freedom or for a lucky win. The fulfillment of his desire does not depend solely on his own will and behaviour; he has simply to persist, waiting and hoping.

It may well happen that one will not endure these trials physically and hence will die; or one may lose all hope and commit suicide; or one can no longer endure the contradiction between the existing validity and non-existing embodiment of his value and will succumb to an insane illusion that the embodiment continues to exist ("I manage to talk to my friend across the distance between us", "I am Jesus", "I have a treasure hidden somewhere") or in a desperate desire for solace (at any cost) he will change his value orientation in an uncontrolled and unreflected manner (although with later "justification") mostly by lapsing to lower values. The value of friendship will gradually be replaced, e.g., by the value of external social recognition and appreciation, or the value of human dignity will imperceptibly give way to chemically induced euphoria, etc. One will begin to re-examine one’s existing value orientation quite consciously in a process that will, however, qualitatively change one’s extreme situation.

While humans grapple with false ways out of an extreme situation of the second degree, this situation may deepen still further to a third degree. This may arise also in response to the first degree of the threat posed to the value involved, or quite directly without any previous threat having been posed or without the loss of embodiment of the given value. It could also be a hidden process concerned not so much with the values themselves, but rather with the embodiments representing them. As far as the third level of threat to a vitally important value is concerned, not only the embodiment of this value is threatened or lost, but the value itself is in jeopardy.

This may occur only after doubts have been cast on the validity of such a value, on its significance for man and its position among other values in his personal hierarchy of values. To cast doubts on the validity of one’s supreme value is a free internal human act, albeit caused by external circumstances either repelling one from a specific value or attracting one to another value. One experimentally gives up one’s previous conviction regarding the meaning of life and sets out to seek a new, more substantial answer to the question: why live at all and where to invest one’s life. One goes out of one’s way to find a new value orientation or to ascertain, with a degree of reliability, whether another value orientation would not be better, whether in it one could really find oneself and one’s own path to the world. One does this in a conscious and reflected manner, unlike the above-mentioned uncontrolled escape from an extreme situation of the second degree into a scramble for false values.

Quite voluntarily one thus introduces problems into one’s ultimate life certainty, which itself may turn out to be not quite as bright and conflict-free as one would hope; one abandons it for the uncertainty of assessing, pondering and searching. One asks oneself whether one has not been deprived of the embodiment of such a value rightly, whether this particular value is really worth sticking to as a supreme value, or one of the supreme values. In brief, one wants to understand the situation.

The process of casting doubt on the validity of an existing vitally important value may stem from the value itself: one feels a certain dissatisfaction and uncertainty towards it, without perceiving as yet any alternative value. Or such doubts may be caused by a comparison of one’s hitherto valid principal value with other values. Thus, one hesitates at a crossroads, trying to choose the right direction rather than opting for an illusion of salvation at the cost of betrayal.

To avoid being wrecked in the straits of widespread inner uncertainty and intractable conflicts, to avoid losing oneself amidst the chaos of numerous options which tend to render choice impossible or at least difficult, one needs to mobilize wisdom out of one’s innermost self. It is immensely difficult to decide whether one has justifiably cast doubts on a key value such as self-assertion, and whether it is more appropriate eventually to replace such a value in one’s hierarchy, e.g., with the value of loyalty or health. Faced with a situation involving doubts, e.g., about the value of property, it is no less difficult to discover for oneself a sufficiently satisfactory higher value. No wiser person can stand in for oneself in such decision making.

One may or may not succeed in understanding the situation; one may not gain an insight into the situation and may succumb to resignation. One may even opt for a voluntary departure from life or quite consciously choose an inferior but easily attainable value: classically, wine, women and song. But this usually fails to be fully satisfactory once one has set oneself much higher objectives in life and now lives with a suppressed sense of non-fulfillment or eventually of betrayal. Or finally one can respond by giving up and becoming bogged down in the deadlock of the impossibility to decide. Then one is seized by the experience of the vanity and relativity of everything which gradually disintegrates into a feeling of absurdity and a loss of the future.

Or one may manage to work one’s way to a clear-cut recogni-tion and endorsement of a value one genuinely can accept fully as a supreme value. As the case may be, this can even entail that original value on which doubts were cast for a time, or a value to whose unsuspected importance one has been led only through the suffering experienced in an extreme situation.

first degree second degree third degree

initial threat to embodi- loss of embodi- doubts cast

situation ment of value ment of value on validity

of value

goal save the situation bear the situation understand

the situation

way to mobilize to mobilize hope to mobilize

courage wisdom

It is evident that human choice and the defence of certain vitally important values or, on the contrary, their conscious abandonment cannot be explained by, or deduced from, a mere situation. There are situations, which seem to be optimal for the full assertion of a given value; yet under such situations one may give up this very value in exchange for another value, e.g., to devote oneself to hard work in a situation facilitating the easy life. On the other hand, some situations are extremely unfavorable even for the very internal preservation of a certain value; yet one is prepared to defend that value at the expense of one’s life, e.g., the value of religious freedom in an atheistic dictatorship.

It seems that in consciously selecting and defending or in giving up a certain value, one is not necessarily guided by the situation. Rather the ultimate explanation and justification of one’s decision is a purely internal matter: a certain value either has a meaning for one or it has not.

The meaning of a value need not be in accord with the situa-tion at all; on the contrary, it may prove it to be senseless, emerging independently of the situation and enabling one to assume an independent position towards it. Also, independently of a situation, a certain value may lose its meaning so that one no longer has any reason to defend it even though the situation should "require" it.

As a symptom of the intrinsic verity of values, meaning refers to being and not to situations. It is its "sign", which emerges as a mainstay or a challenge to one to espouse a certain value orientation which is intrinsically important for him or her. In this way, each conscious attitude to values is guided by the perspective of meaning.

However, one’s attitude to one’s principal values is not always fully conscious. One may not discover which particular values actually are personally most significant until one gets involved in situations where such values are endangered. Therefore, extreme situations can evoke a conscious verification of the meaningfulness of vitally important values.

In extreme situations of the first and second degree one may be forced into taking a conscious decision whether to mobilize one’s courage in order to save the situation or one’s hope in order to endure the situation, or not to mobilize them at all. One is forced therefore into consciously examining whether the value whose embodiment is threatened or lost does or does not have any meaning.

The extreme situation would cancel itself out immediately, without one having to save anything or trying to bear an unbearable situation if one realizes that, in actual fact, the situation signals that the value in question only seemed to be a supreme values. It may have lost its meaning for one who may have outgrown it, and one’s prior acknowledgement may have been only because it had not yet been endangered. That is, it may be due to a certain unconscious inertia, while in the meantime meaning has been transferred to other values.

One then emerges from an extreme situation enriched with a clear awareness of what is really meaningful. For instance, a distinguished scientist, who has suffered a spinal column injury and who has found out that he or she will be able to continue his or her work, but will not be able to walk, may react at first as if their supreme value had been jeopardized. But they will succumb to this extreme situation only very briefly before realizing quite clearly that for a long time the actual meaning of their life had not really lain in the value of physical health anyway. Similarly, an extreme situation easily can undeceive one, e.g., a philosopher who believes that he cannot lead a meaningful life without a certain social status, or the father of a family who is convinced that the material well-being of his closest relatives is of paramount importance.

If, on the other hand, one establishes beyond any doubt that a value whose embodiment is threatened or has been lost nonetheless does retain its meaning, this will serve as a source of virtually inexhaustible inner strength. It is truly remarkable what extraordinary feats can be performed and what an immense amount of hope can be held out by people inwardly integrated through their perception of the meaning of an espoused value. This is the case of a man saving the life of a drowning child, a political prisoner withstanding torture by his interrogators, a wife forgiving her husband’s repeated infidelity and cruelty, or an aging author rewriting his destroyed lifelong work.

If long lasting extreme situations of the first and second degree are involved, one repeatedly has to reassure oneself of the meaning of one’s coveted value. Otherwise, the danger may arise that meaning will escape and one will therefore succumb to the impact of the situation after all. A prerequisite for rescue or endurance is repeated restoration of one’s clear-cut awareness of whether and why one should still stick to this or that value. Only thanks to a keen perception of meaning does one know quite invincibly what one really wants, what one is working for and in what one puts one’s hope, in whatever situation one may find oneself.

This keen awareness of meaning in situations of extreme suffering gives an exceptionally profound dimension to human life, rendering it truly human. If the meaning of a certain value is virtually the only thing that "sustains" one in a situation, where the embodiment of this value is lacking, one meets, as never before, the opportunity to experience fully the most profound, spiritual dimension of one’s own life and of leaning thereupon.

The inner strength thus acquired and maintained has nothing in common with the defiance of one who tries — in uncontrolled panic, entirely on his own and at any cost, often using morally unsavory means — to cope with his or her situation in his or her own behalf, without at all examining its meaning.

One who believes, however transiently, that the meaningfullness of a certain value has been established merely by the fact that he or she wants it, runs the risk of becoming bogged down in an illusory imitation of meaning. This cannot for long serve to draw strength for one’s own will power in life because, on the contrary, such an illusion tends to live off one’s own will and deplete it.

The strength emanating from mere defiance will be used up quickly in an extreme situation. One may lapse into resignation and failure: depression, suicide, hopeless feelings of guilt or a slide to surrogate life values, "solace" in alcohol, drugs, violence, vulgar distraction, overindulgent imagination, etc. Or in a happy moment, even though one initially believes that this would only hopelessly deepen his suffering, one eventually may awaken and with the meekness of a keen awareness may begin to ask about meaning. Thanks to this, one will freely distance oneself from all one’s illusions, sorrows, guilts, anxieties, uncertainties and apathy. In this way one will approach the very underpinnings of meaning, which may turn out to be a source of necessary courage and hope in one’s life, whether it turns out to be meaningful to remain faithful to one’s value or to abandon it.

Conscious verification of the meaningfulness of life values in extreme situations of the third degree qualitatively differs from similar activity on the preceding two levels. This entails not only a mere act of ascertaining whether the given value has meaning or not, but also an intricate process of examining which value really has any meaning. This is either within .the framework of a given alternative or in a previously unlimited, but always at least somehow structured, space offering possibilities of choice. One therefore finds oneself, at least for a time, in a situation marked by lack of basic inner provisions and by uncertainty as to which main values should be used to guide one’s life.

For example, a woman doctor, who is both a mother and a scientist in the field of tropical diseases, under the impact of her personal firsthand experience with the greatly insufficient system of medical care in developing countries may begin to re-examine the values of maternal love for her teenage children and of providing assistance to unknown suffering people to whom she feels she is responsible due to her professional qualification. Or an adolescent suddenly will cast doubts on all the values he or she has recognized up till then because he or she finds that the choice of such values was unconscious and seems to have been directed from outside.

One duly rejects such an absurd situation and embarks on a painful and groping search for a new value orientation, still unknown but certainly more profound and indisputably one’s own. Faced with an extreme situation of the third degree, it is particularly crucial to retain unbiased confidence in meaning in general.

Naturally, one may also "seek revenge on fate" in a negativist fashion because of finding oneself in a state of hopelessness as far as values are concerned. One may even derive almost inhuman delight out of what can be termed the cult of absurdity, sometimes with tragic external consequence. But it is destructive enough when an unhappy individual allows their consciousness to be obscured by very intense feelings of powerlessness, helplessness, uncertainty, guilt and despair. It is destructive when one fails to extricate oneself from one’s own self, when one attempts to pursue meaning which seems to be escaping, or when one fails to allow oneself to be led without any conditions or strings.

Within the enclosed space of the human mind, all the possibilities remain indifferently open. If one is not to become, in one’s own eyes, as unreal as such possibilities, if one is not to be drowned in a sea of indefiniteness and relativity, it is essential to leave this prison and step out of the confines of one’s own self and of one’s situation. Conscious openness towards meaning is invariably supra-situational (practicable under any situation). This makes it possible to transcend the horizon of all the given possibilities and to assume towards them a novel approach "from above".

Faced with situations in which doubts have been cast on their vitally important values, some are capable of brightening their consciousness as never before particularly through unqualified trust in meaning. They can divest themselves of all the negative and chance influences and positively gravitate towards the substantial. An awareness that I have nothing to lose and everything to gain is in itself a source of peace of mind and concentration, even amidst the hardest suffering.

It is necessary to allow ourselves literally to be permeated by nothing other than our own thirst for meaning to such an extent that we forget ourselves, making ourselves available to meaning instead of seeking it for our own ends. This is the condition for transcending the zone of what from our present standpoint is seen as liable to doubts. It is required in order to open ourselves to that absolute horizon in the deepest perceivable background of our existence: a certain shape of an alternative value orientation for continued movement in life begins to shadow forth.

This key, liberating moment of understanding, when one’s own inner image of the fulfillment of humanity reveals itself, is not so much a moment of literal "discovery of meaning", but rather a moment of "discovering ourselves in meaning". This moment arrives only when one is so genuinely concerned with meaning that one longs for it not only because of oneself but because of meaning itself.

One who seeks meaning in such a selfless way, who is willing to let himself be led solely by it and never be distracted by any imitation, on the one hand, or illusion of absolute meaninglessness, on the other, has the prerequisites for emerging from this extreme situation inwardly transformed and liberated due to the certainty of his or her values.

Through the meaning received the order of human experience is again interconnected with the order of being.

Through the external aspect of one’s own identity one finds oneself in situations. Through the internal aspect one proceeds from being, while simultaneously gravitating towards being. In this context, one does not differ basically from other beings (see the first section above) even though one follows one’s own ontologically unique human path. The fact that human independence and integrity, unlike all other existences, inheres in one’s existential relationship with values constitutes the focal point of one’s self-determination with regard to situations and to being. Through the choice of values one determines freely the mode of one’s procedure from being as well as the mode of one’s emergence in situations.

One can be guided by two principal criteria. In view of the situation, each value is more or less practicable, and in view of being it is more or less meaningful. To orient oneself during the choice or defence of values according to their practicability, therefore, means increasing the rate of one’s dependence on situations, while to orient oneself according to their meaningfulness means enhancing the rate of one’s responsibility towards being. Responsibility towards being means assuming a free attitude to situations; on the contrary, loss of responsibility towards being is conducive to enslavement by situations.

Each extreme situation puts one at a crossroads: whether to take one’s bearings according to practicability or according to the meaningfulness of the endangered life value.

One may orient oneself in terms of a situation: to abandon a meaningful value because its embodiment is threatened or made impossible, and to assert a value that is intrinsically perceived as not too meaningful but in a given situation practicable. This course of action guarantees one a certain situational profit but at the same time substantially harms one’s human dignity.

Or one can orient oneself intrinsically: to abandon a practicable value if it is meaningless and to uphold a value, which is practicable with the greatest difficulties, but which I intrinsically experience as meaningful. This implies that I manage to persist in a humanely fulfilled harmony with being.

A situational solution of extreme situations subordinates meaningfulness to practicability, the viewpoint of being to the viewpoint of situation: what is practicable is also "meaningful", what is not practicable is "meaningless". The concept of meaning is deprived of its genuine sense as a regulating agent independent of situation.

An intrinsic solution of extreme situations, on the other hand, subordinates practicability to meaningfulness, the viewpoint of the situation to that of being. What is practicable is not necessarily meaningful and what is meaningful does not have to be practicable here and now. The concept of meaning retains its authentic sense so that what is also preserved is that specifically human creative tension between the requirements of practicability and of meaningfulness, which spells out one’s dynamic relation to being.

An intrinsic solution of extreme situations thus offers the preservation and promotion of what belongs to human identity and dignity: a free relationship to situations and to one’s own life in the name of responsibility towards meaning and being. In intrinsically selected and defended values one experimentally codifies one’s free and differentiated attitude to situations and one’s responsibly integrated approach to being.

Being, meaning, value, life, situation: to one oriented on being all these concepts have their full meaning and an order of mutual creative tension stemming from being. This resembles the tension of a cascade of lively streams flowing gradually from the heights of being down to the full breadth of all situations. A keen sense of the order of this ontological streaming constitutes a condition for one’s full endorsement of one’s own being.

On the contrary, a situational solution of extreme situations tacitly presupposes that this order is completely the converse, for ontological dominance is ascribed to the situation. To maintain such an idea being must never be allowed into play — its concept is utilized simply for the denotation of a mere summary of all situations. In this way, the situation grows into the supreme power; as an infinitely broad context it incessantly consumes all. Sucked into its whirlpool, one loses oneself and one sense of the whole ontological order. One subordinates one’s life to the requirements of the situation and degenerates into a mere struggle for survival and prosperity. "Meaning," if it is mentioned at all, is reduced to a mere expression of satisfaction derived from the practicability of chosen values. The fullness of the human being is then ascribed to the full development of one’s abilities to adapt oneself to any situation and to succeed in deriving profit for oneself. This adaptability may even figure as "responsibility"; the power, attained through such adaptability and situationally conditioned, may then be glorified as "freedom".

The conflict between being situation-dominated and being-serving is virtually inevitable. It can develop into an extreme situation for both, their vitally important values contradicting each other. Outwardly, the latter is usually the loser, sometimes to the point of the violent liquidation of physical existence. But the main support of one’s human, i.e., spiritually conditioned, existence can never be taken away through the situation.

On the other hand, such a confrontation with the second of the two elementary life options may call forth in the very depth of the soul of the situationist an unexpected feeling of guilt. This is a sudden pang of conscience that he is, after all, acting against being, meaning and values, which — independently of the situation — one probably would endorse as one’s own. This is to realize that one is, indeed, acting against oneself. This sense of betrayal or defection from being invariably arrives as soon as the individual realizes that one has threatened a value, which, at the bottom of one’s heart, is meaningful for oneself. At the same time it paves the way for re-establishing one’s attitude to being.

If, however, such a one remains absolutely consistent in one’s situational life and orientation, though this result in exceptional external prosperity, it also entails inward mortification. This extinguishes what is intrinsically most specific to one as a human being, namely, one’s creative spiritual existence. Through an inner attachment to meaningful values, this offers one a fabulous privilege among all other existences: a free attitude to situations and a responsible relationship with being.

No external situation provides a reliable breeding ground for what makes one human. Each attempt at striking root in the presupposed universality of outward situatedness, in the desire to master situations by incorporating oneself into them, to prosper under any circumstances, inevitably leads on the contrary to human independence being swallowed up and disintegrated by the relativity of this situatedness. In it one becomes callous, devoid of the inner support from meaning and being, captive and irresponsible. Such a one is dissolved and disintegrated into building material for the purely external (biological, economic, social, psychological and ideological) factors of one’s life. In a word: one loses oneself.

At the opposite end of the scale, human partiality rooted in being, and without ambitions towards universal situational profit and power, receives life-giving fulfillment, free and responsible. This is an absolute life dimension.

One who is inwardly happy thanks to this fulfillment is capable of meaningfully coping, even with immense situational suffering. One who is "happy" only outwardly, as a result of a favor granted by the situation and for the purpose of situational appearances, is at the same time quite helplessly exposed to a hidden innermost suffering. Before this one can either ignominiously flee in search of external distraction or admit to oneself, frankly and meekly, the intrinsically significant meaning of such suffering, which in turn challenges one to mend one’s ways.

Whatever the vitally important values which this or that human individual has chosen so far according to this or that criteria, in each situation involving their threat — in each extreme situation — one is offered a basic new opportunity in life. Once again one finds oneself at the crossroads between being and situation, between the preservation and loss of one’s human identity, between.being and non-being. An extreme situation may even be directly summarized also as a situation which presents the question: to be or not to be with extreme urgency.

One is more if one chooses and defends one’s vitally important values primarily according to their meaning, that is, in accordance with being, not if he chooses and the defends these values primarily according to their practicability, that is in accordance with the situation.

If an individual goes out of his way to avoid extreme situations, which is possible only through an unconditional adjustment to any situation, then one rejects one’s specifically human being. If, on the other hand, one tries to accept any situation in freedom and responsibility — which is possible solely in unqualified loyalty to being — then such a person develops towards their specific fullness.

Translated from Czech by Jan Valeška