Existential Crisis Research Articles

The Problem of “Higher Individuals” in the Works of F.M. Dostoevsky

This article deals with the controversial issue of F.M. Dostoevsky’s concept of “Higher Individuals.” The latter are people who rise above other people and have a special influence on society and on history. The authors argue that this concept is most clearly expressed in “The Diary of a Writer” (1876) as well as in the story “The Sentence”, along with Dostoevsky’s commentaries on this story. By means of a detailed analysis of Raskolnikov’s “theory” within the novel “Crime and Punishment”, it is demonstrated that only a superficial version of the concept of “higher individuals” is refuted in the heroes’ argumentations; at the same time, the novel’s characters – Marmeladov, his wife Katerina Ivanovna, and Raskolnikov – can be viewed as examples of different degrees in the personal accomplishment of this “higher personality” state. In conclusion, it is observed how a person must go through three stages of development in order to become a “higher character”: firstly, the experience of an existential crisis and the understanding of the lack of meaning in one’s life; secondly, the “rebellion” against the Creator of the world and its laws along with the rejection of the traditional church faith, whose rejection leads this person on the edge of suicide; thirdly, the acquisition of a new faith, first of all, a faith in one’s immortality, which happens in an unusual, unorthodox form, as is well demonstrated by the character of Svidrigailov in Dostoevsky’s novel. According to Dostoevsky’s doctrine, the meaning ofimmortality lies in the continuation of a person’s existence in a new form in the earthly world or in a “parallel” world similar to the earthly one, and not in the ideal Kingdom of Heaven, as the church claims. Finally, the authors maintain that the process of a character’s transformation into a “higher individual” was consistently and fully described by Dostoevsky in the stories of Raskolnikov and Ivan Karamazov.

Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present by Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Many scholars of authoritarianism noticed striking similarities between dictatorships of the past and President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, policies, and style of rule. Ben-Ghiat’s study of authoritarians from Benito Mussolini to Trump approaches the problem through the lens of a strongman “playbook,” providing a detailed and often intimate history of how these men win, exercise, and lose power. Although heavily focused on European figures—including Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, Vladimir Putin, Silvio Berlusconi, Recep Erdoğan, and Victor Orbán—Strongmen also examines, to varying degrees, dictators from Africa, Asia, and the Americas, including Idi Amin (Uganda), Mohamed Barre (Somalia), Muammar Gaddafi (Libya), Saddam Hussein (Iraq), Augusto Pinochet (Chile), Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire), Rodrigo Duterte (Philippines), and Nahrendra Modi (India). The book’s strength lies in the connections drawn across cases, providing “a long view of the authoritarian style of governance, which highlights baseline features that recur in different circumstances” with the goal of helping “us to understand authoritarianism as it manifests today” (7). The book should appeal to a very broad readership, who will find Ben-Ghiat’s insights revelatory and provocative.The book’s first section opens with an examination of how Mussolini established the strategies and employed the rhetoric that strongmen have used to come to power ever since. Ben-Ghiat writes, “Mussolini prepared the script used by today’s authoritarians that casts the leader as a victim of his domestic enemies and of an international system that has cheated his country” (22). Indeed, she notes, “For the strongman, politics is always personal” (51). Mussolini established a myth that became a standard authoritarian mechanism, wherein the nation faced an apocalyptic crisis that could be solved only by “the male leader as savior” (58). Although the strongman alone can save the nation, failure and accountability belong solely to others. Indeed, as Ben-Ghiat explains, “From Mussolini onward, making sure you have immunity while those who have done your dirty work go to jail has been an essential strongman skill” (50).The book’s central chapters focus on the strongman’s “tools of rule.” National greatness, which, Ben-Ghiat argues, “is the glue of government,” is predicated on identifying an existential crisis, stoking nostalgia, and promising utopia. In most cases, the solution has involved some form of violent cleansing or constricting of rights, especially the persecution of minorities, whether political, ethnic, or religious. Propaganda, not surprisingly, has been critical to strongman regimes, but a leader’s fostering of an apparent direct connection to his followers, through rallies, speeches, or, in recent years, Twitter has also been important. Ben-Ghiat shows in illuminating detail how strongmen personality cults are not only infused with hyper-masculinity but also with boasts about sexual transgressions (some of them illegal), such as “hosting sex parties with underage women in attendance (Berlusconi), being spanked by porn stars (Trump), or keeping the twin sister of your wife as your mistress (Mobutu)” (121). Although the discussion of Hitlerian violence as redolent of Trump’s policies and threats creates a bit of a disconnect, Ben-Ghiat’s compendium of Trump-inspired violence is sobering.Because the book is intended for a broad audience, Ben-Ghiat does not frontload a heavy social science, comparative analytical framework. Readers interested in interdisciplinarity may be disappointed not to read more about how Ben-Ghiat chose her case studies. The book focuses on “forms of personalist rule” wherein power is concentrated “in one individual whose own political and financial interests prevail over national ones” (7), thereby creating a system of rule in which loyalty to the strongman, rather than expertise, qualifies people for administrative positions. Fair enough, but why include Franco, for example, and not Hugo Chavez? Similarly, more could be said about typology or degree. Some of these authoritarians utterly dominated the state and civil society, murdering thousands and even millions along the way, whereas others, like Berlusconi and Trump, committed dangerous but much less egregious attacks on democracy and the rule of law.Overall, Strongmen is extraordinarily successful at revealing how the ideas and practices of personalist, authoritarian rule have been borrowed, handed down, and imitated throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. The similarities are truly striking. Moreover, looking at how men like Trump and Putin, or Gaddafi and Berlusconi, have interacted with one another, the book persuasively demonstrates how strongmen encourage and support their counterparts in other countries, politically, diplomatically, financially, and even personally. Ultimately, Ben-Ghiat is not necessarily equating these case studies but pointing out the warning signs that, for example, Trumpism could easily evolve into something infinitely more sinister and destructive.

Allah Harapan Kita di Masa Krisis Pandemi Covid-19

The current Covid-19 pandemic has led to existential crises throughout the whole world. It has affected many aspects of human life. It has caused fear, anxiety, despair and even death of millions of people. This article focuses on the importance and meaningfulness of hope in God in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis. In Christian theology, hope is one of the theological virtues. It has become increasingly important and urgent for Christians and theologians to reflect on hope in God as the ultimate source of hope for humankind in such a time like this. In the midst of the widespread of various misinterpretations of the Covid-19 pandemic, Christians and theologians are called to contribute their theological reflections for the betterment of individuals, societies and humanity at large especially in coping with and responding to the pandemic crisis. The method applied in this article is qualitative, i.e. by studying in depth biblical sources, magisterial documents and Catholic teaching on theme of hope in God as a theological virtue and other sources that are related to the topic of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Effects of Climate Change on Child and Adolescent Mental Health: Clinical Considerations.

We review recent literature on the effects of climate change on child and adolescent mental health and discuss treatment and engagement by clinicians. Climate change affects child and adolescent mental health in many intersecting ways, including as a social and ecological determinant of health, a threat amplifier, and a source of trauma and distress. Single extreme weather events contribute to significant negative mental health consequences; however, subacute and chronic climate events also have mental health sequelae. Furthermore, awareness of the climate crisis is associated with emotional distress. Young people with pre-existing mental illness and lacking social support may be at elevated risk for climate change-related mental health effects. Climate activism is associated with resilience and positive development, but may also be a source of increased stress, particularly for marginalized youths. Climate change can affect the mental health of children and adolescents in complex and diverse ways. Sources of coping and resilience also vary greatly between individuals. Mental health clinicians must respond to this existential crisis by addressing research gaps in this area, obtaining relevant clinical training, educating their communities, and joining and supporting young people in their advocacy efforts.

Survival or Crisis? Funding Distribution from Grant-Making Foundations to Grassroots Social Organizations in China

The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake increased the need for disaster relief and reconstruction projects in China. This disaster created an upsurge of Chinese grant-making foundations, which then increased funding expectations. Many grassroots social organizations (SOs) in China believed that going forward, this level of funding would continue. However, the majority of grassroots SOs in China are currently facing an existential crisis. Their survival is being threatened by a shortage of funding from both local and foreign grant-making foundations. This research uses an empirical analysis of grant-making foundations and in-depth interviews, as well as observational evidence accumulated over a 10-year period, to explore the distribution of funding from foundations to grassroots SOs in China. The findings show that there are a limited number of Chinese grant-making foundations and that the foundations that exist do not include grassroots SOs in their funding scheme.

SUBALTERN PERSPECTIVES IN MAHESH DATTANIS BRAVELY FOUGHT THE QUEEN

Mahesh DattanisBravely Fought the Queen elucidates the defaulted picture of the Indian society, where the characters face a tremendous existential crisis. The women are badly dependent on the men characters for their survival, whereas the male characters are badly dependent on the patriarchal system for proving their dominant existence in the society. Every character in the play whether a man or a woman faces a gruesome crisis for their survival. They are not free birds who can drive their life by their free will. Women in the play are portrayed as the victims under the tyrannical hands of patriarchy, from which they are trying to escape from the claustrophobic existence to their own shaped world of independence. This paper is an earnest endevour to explore the existential crisis of the characters and search a probable solution.

How working seniors rate their quality of life

Old age results in changes in the elderly due to: existential crisis, maladjustment to new functions, reform and reduction of social contacts. Most elderly people who continue to work belong to disadvantaged social classes, but there are elderly people who show dissatisfaction with being retired and try to return to work to feel energized. In view of this scenario, the present article is guided by the great appreciation of the quality of life in the elderly. The objective was to examine how the elderly who work rate their quality of life. Thirty-six seniors who were still working participated in the research, with a mean age of 71.5 and ± 5.4. Data was collected accidentally in the city of São Paulo. For this, 36 identical WHOQOL questionnaires and Termo de Consentimento Livre e Esclarecido (TCLE)[3] were used. To find out if there is a statistically significant difference, the non-parametric chi-square test was applied. As a result: 80.55% say they Totally agree with the premise that God cares about his problems; 63.88% Totally agree that they have a significant relationship with God; 50% are Satisfied with their sleep and 38.88% rate their need for daily medical treatment as Nothing. It is noticed that the elderly workers are mostly satisfied with the quality of the observed aspects of their lives.

Abstract 12580: An Interprofessional Approach to Standardizing Family Care During Code Blue Events

Introduction: The development of a standardized practice for family care during resuscitation (FPDR) events was identified as an area for quality improvement at a large academic hospital. Healthcare Chaplains were identified as ideal Family Facilitators for FPDR due to their professional training in therapeutic communication and existential crisis management as well as their current practice of responding to all Code Blue events. An interprofessional workgroup developed guidelines to delineate the role of Chaplain as Family Facilitator in Code Blue events and created an interprofessional education simulation (IPE-sim) training curriculum for their dissemination. Methods: The workgroup, which included an acute care nurse practitioner in the nursing faculty, a palliative care physician, and the director of Chaplain Services, conducted a thorough review of FPDR literature, analyzed data on Chaplain care provided at Code Blue events over the past 9 years, and entered into dialogue with stakeholders regarding FPDR. The group authored guidelines which were adopted as an addendum to the institution’s existing Code Blue policy. The workgroup collaborated with the Code Blue team to develop simulation training events to ensure proper application of the new guidelines. Results: This work resulted in the addition of FPDR guidelines to the Code Blue policy and the creation of a FPDR flowchart that standardized the Chaplain role in Code Blue events by delineating a communication process as well as FPDR inclusion and exclusion criteria. The implementation of this work was facilitated through three 4-hour IPE-sim training sessions. Conclusions: Standardized FPDR guidelines pertaining to the role of Chaplain as Family Facilitator improve patient- and family-centered care. Institutional FPDR guidelines should be created by an interprofessional team and vetted by multidisciplinary stakeholders. Simulation-enhanced IPE prepares Chaplains and teams for FPDR and can improve interprofessional collaboration during Code Blue events.

Monstrous Interiors: Quasi-Domestic Space As the Ontological Terrorist of Toxic Masculinity

Resonating with these pandemic times, Catherine Spooner has described the Gothic as a ‘malevolent virus’. In my paper, I will propose that the haunted house narrative, so central to American Gothic, has itself mutated in response to a backdrop of post-millenial social, political and financial collapse in a manner quite different to developments in the rest of the Gothic literary world. The narrative strand which has emerged, presents the reader with a new form of the Gothic male protagonist, whom the British psychologist R.D Laing in The Divided Self (1960), would describe as a ‘schizoid’ subject. Fragile, failing and fragmenting, he escapes a failing career, marriage and parenthood by removing his family to a quasi-domestic space which promises repair. House or hotel, these ‘haunted houses’ are different from the earlier ‘hungry houses’ identified by Gothic writer Stephen Graham Jones in his introduction to Robert Marasco’s classic haunted house novel, Burnt Offerings. This new quasi-domestic space, often combining work and home, rises up to meet the male schizoid, not merely as the traditional Gothic setting, but as a sentient being; a monster in its own right. His entrapment in this new Gothic labyrinth that is constantly shifting, expanding and shrinking, provides a performative stage on which the schizoid male is forced into an existential crisis beyond that of the trauma of spousal and parental failure, ultimately forcing him to confront what it is to exist in space and time. A reaction to the rise of neo-liberalism and toxic masculinity, this important strand to American Gothic embraces the multiplicity of the Gothic’s new forms and is evident in texts such as Steve Rasnic Tem’s, Deadfall Hotel, Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, Thomas Liggotti’s, The Town Manager, Jac Jemc’s, The Grip of It and Shaun Hamill’s A Cosmology of Monsters. Developing from their deeper roots in the Calvinist Gothic tradition of Hawthorne, Brockden Brown and Poe via the mid-century works of Stephen King and Robert Marasco, these new post- millennial narratives provide a space in which notions of masculine subjectivity are fundamentally challenged.

Canaries in the climate coal mine: Climate change and COVID-19 as meta-crisis

For many Brazilians and Americans, the year 2020 was marked by unprecedented environmental catastrophes alongside the COVID-19 pandemic. In Brazil and the United States, the impact of these existential threats was particularly acute in the third quarter of the year with both countries experiencing record-breaking environmental disasters and high mortality rates from the virus. The research examines a media flashpoint on the eve of the 2020 U.S. presidential election: a transnational discussion between Brazilians and Americans hosted by three flagship papers in Brazil and the U.S.: O Estado de São Paolo, Folha de São Paulo, and the New York Times. Engaging with one another across the three digital discourse fora, Brazilian and American contributors discuss the double onslaught of the pandemic and climate change. For them, the simultaneous threats of extreme climate events and viral contamination amplify each other, generating a traumatic sense of meta-crisis. This sense of meta-crisis encompasses a collective acknowledgment of the breakdown of two key societal institutions in both Brazil and the United States meant to combat these existential crises: science and the media. The perception of these institutions as dysfunctional further exacerbates the collective cultural trauma among Brazilians and Americans. In making these connections, this article puts theories of cultural trauma into dialogue with emergent scholarship on the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change from a cross-national perspective.

Feminism and the ecosystem catastrophe: Feeling alternative futures

This article builds an ecofeminist lens from community efforts as a form of feeling alternative futures in Hawaiʻi, with broader application for elsewhere. Women and children are critical groups on the front lines of climate-related crises, including food and housing insecurity, and the fight for environmental justice. Drawing upon personal experience, in this article, I highlight several grassroots projects that I have been connected to on the island of Oʻahu in Hawaiʻi that exemplify community-based efforts to conceptualize, build and feel sustainable alternative futures. In the face of compounding human existential crises, it is women’s grassroots community organizing, Indigenous knowledges and traditional Hawaiian practices that are leading the way to sustainable food production, community building, and resurgent Hawaiian sovereignty. Through practical community-engaged experience, and learning from these communities, we can feel ecofeminist alternative futures and enact sustainable practices that challenge the current climate emergency.

The Effects of Retirement on Sense of Purpose in Life: Crisis or Opportunity?

Does retirement lead to an existential crisis or present an opportunity to experience a renewed sense of purpose in life? Prior research has documented a negative association between retirement and sense of purpose in life, suggesting that retirement could lead people to feel aimless and lost. We revisited these findings using a quasiexperimental approach and identified the causal impact of retirement on purpose in life. In a nationally representative panel of American adults (N = 8,113), we applied an instrumental-variable analysis to assess how Social Security retirement incentives in the United States drove differences in the likelihood of retirement. Results showed a sizable increase in purpose in life as an outcome of retirement. These improvements were driven by individuals with lower socioeconomic status who retired from dissatisfying jobs. The findings suggest that retirement may provide an opportunity to experience a renewed sense of purpose, especially among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations.

Imperatives for open innovation in times of COVID-19

PurposeCOVID-19 pandemic has triggered an existential crisis amongst the companies, communities, organisations and institutions across the globe. People are facing unusual scenarios characterized by prolonged lockdowns, changes in the work from home compulsions, job losses, disruptions in the supply-chain networks, the slowdown in economies, scarcity of essential commodities and unavailability of medical services due to burgeoning numbers of positive cases with COVID-19. Death rates due to COVID-19 are alarmingly high, which complicate matters all the more. The purpose of this paper is to explore how open innovation can enable the suffering communities overcome the crisis of such magnitude.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on general understanding and academic insight emerging out of the millennial crisis like COVID-19 that the author witnessed with close quarters.FindingsThe people’s suffering due to COVID-19 pandemic is terrific, almost unparalleled in the history of civilisation. However, the pandemic has also galvanised the people all over the world to come together and work towards collaborative problem solving and open innovation. As such, COVID-19 has presented an unprecedented situation which warrants extra-ordinary responses. The crisis has inadvertently made room for open innovation so that human miseries can be successfully mitigated by leveraging collective wisdom and traditional knowledge of the communities who are more than willing today to collaborate and make a difference in the solutions space in true sense.Originality/valueThis paper provides fresh insights on the rationale and efficacy of open innovations in overcoming the crisis like a pandemic. Companies across the globe have also come forward to work together with anyone, including their competitors, to explore immediate and practical solutions to the problems caused by COVID-19. The paper also provides a framework of developing as well as strengthening an ecosystem for open innovations in the world inflicted by unique civilizational crisis. The only way to get out of the current mess is to join hands for collaborations and collectively find innovative solutions to the issues plaguing humanity today.

Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: Developing a PLAN for the future

This age of modernity is characterized by consistent growth in energy use, economic activity, and resource consumption, and a generally increasing standard of living—albeit inequitably distributed. All currently living humans, and most academic disciplines, have developed in this age, which appears normal and indefinite to us. But modernity has been enabled by the rapid and accelerating expenditure of our one-time inheritance of fossil fuels, and by drawing down the resources and ecosystems of our finite Earth—none of which can be sustained as we transition from a resource-rich frontier to a human-dominated planet. Climate change is often singled out as modernity’s existential crisis, but it is only one of a series of interlocking challenges constituting an unprecedented predicament that must be understood and mitigated in order to live within planetary limits. While energetic and technological challenges attract significant attention, arguably the greatest challenges are conceptual or even cultural. In particular, as we review in this Perspective, today’s political economy has been designed to value short-term financial wealth over the real treasure of Earth’s functioning ecosystems, to discount the future at the expense of the present, and to demand infinite exponential growth…which is simply impossible on a finite planet. Given all this, humanity should view its present overshoot-prone trajectory with tremendous suspicion, humility, and concern. We call for the establishment of a transdisciplinary network of scholars from across the entire academic landscape to develop a global understanding of planetary limits and how humanity can adapt to the associated realities. We present a set of foundational principles to serve as a starting point to anchor this network and drive a new area of focused inquiry to develop a shared vision of viable future paths.

Factors driving business model innovation in sample case studies in South Africa

In an environment of changing customer needs, technological advancement and digitization, the importance of business model innovation in supporting companies to accrue benefits from increased digitization while counteracting threats has intensified. Factors driving business model innovation could be of value in facilitating business model innovation success and accrue benefits from increasing digitization. As the factors driving business model innovation are often triggers for the next cycle, however, there is limited empirical research on factors driving business model innovation. This paper presents empirical findings on factors driving business model innovation using unstructured interviews with nine executives from five sample companies in South Africa. Main finding from the research indicate that both external and internal factors such as existential crises, serve as valuable triggers for business model innovation. Furthermore, entrepreneurial inspirational leadership and quality of staff are important conditions for business model innovation success. The study findings imply that both companies and policymakers who seek to facilitate innovation need to take into account the impact of the business model innovation triggers on business model innovation success. The main contribution of the paper is the empirical finding on factors driving business model innovation using as a lens the sample case study companies.

Earthquake ethics—Recovering lost ground when disaster strikes

AbstractRenesas Electronics Corporation is a major global semiconductor supplier headquartered in Japan. It was formed in the early 2000s through the mergers of the semiconductor divisions of Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and NEC Corporation, each of which had a nearly 40‐year history. It is one of the world's leading suppliers of microcontroller devices, the brains of everything electronic and unique to each supplier, such that a redesign of the end‐system is needed to accommodate a change in microcontroller suppliers. Companies representing hundreds of billions of dollars of manufacturing revenue depended on a stable supply of microcontrollers from Renesas. This case‐based research analyzes how an ethical decision‐making framework helped Renesas survive the 2011 Great Japan Earthquake, which damaged Renesas's flagship factory and significantly reduced its production capacity, threatening to roil the global electronics industry. Because of this ethical framework, the company emerged stronger than before after an existential crisis.

Confronting Ecological Monstrosity

Confronting Ecological Monstrosity

The revolt of the chemists: biofuels, agricultural overproduction, and the chemurgy movement in New Deal America

ABSTRACT This article proposes a new reading of the chemurgy movement in New Deal America. It shows that the quest for renewable energy was rooted in a vision of a new economy based on chemical knowledge. Rather than a goal in itself, fuel alcohol for automotive uses was meant to showcase the problem-solving power of chemists and the urgency to put chemists in charge on all levels. The article places this vision in the context of the existential crisis of capitalism in the 1930s and traces the movement’s formation, its defining projects and their failures, and how the cause petered out in the post-war years. The chemurgy movement failed for three reasons. Its defining product, fuel alcohol, was not competitive on existing markets, the movement lacked political allies, particularly in the farming community, and faced vigorous resistance from the oil industry, and its vision of expert rule never gained momentum.

Love and emotions at the time of COVID-19

COVID-19 has already swept millions of lives and created the deep black cloud made up of negative emotions. Analysis of origin of negative emotions from previous experiences indicates diversity in thinking, reasoning, self-centeredness and lack of empathy give rise to human vices which are difficult but not impossible to overcome by resurrection of positive emotions like love, empathy, motivation for good deeds and philanthropic activities. Complex interplay of positive and negative emotions orchestrated by intricately associated neuronal circuits, neurotransmitters coupled with endocrinal influence holds responsible for human behavior, considered as the root of human civilization, is currently facing existential crisis during COVID-19 pandemic. Human civilization is experiencing unique psychosocial problems through emerging COVID-19 pandemic. Depression, panic buying, herd behavior, infodemic, immense sufferings of marginalized people, surge of addictive behavior, racism, domestic violence, rape, divorce, financial constraints, stigmatization, all stem from negative emotions and lack of positive vibes amidst the rally of death and sorrows. COVID-19 and surge of negative emotions are the two pandemics which conjointly causing major mental health threat. Cultivations and practice of positive emotions and triumph of optimistic octet over sinister septet are desirable to save Mother Nature and her habitats from the cruel claws of this pandemic.

Specifics of the emotional burnout syndrome in the representatives of "helping" professions

Relevance. Emotional burnout is dangerous due to the presence of a wide range of neurotic and psychosomatic symptoms. The article discusses the features of the structure and formation of the emotional burnout syndrome as manifestations of personal value-semantic deformations. Burnout has been found to be negatively associated with solving existential problems. The study aims to explore the specifics of the emotional burnout syndrome as manifestations of personal value-semantic deformations in the representatives of "helping" professions. Materials and methods. The study involved 968 respondents employed in the field of "helping" professions. Of the entire sample, 465 people (consulted persons) made up the main research group, and 503 individuals were included into the control group. The main study methods were clinical and psychological and experimental-psychological. Results. Psychodiagnostics made it possible to clarify the types of emotional states and self-attitudes that characterized the specificity of burnout. Psychodiagnostic examination confirmed the presence in the subjects studied the elements of existential crisis associated with both professional situations and the personality traits of the "burned out" persons. Conclusions. Emotional burnout syndrome is a "payment" not for sympathy and love for people from the representatives of "helping" professions, but for their unfulfilled expectations, for the lack of sometimes visible result of work, for the loss of the activities meaning, for the devaluation of efforts by those around him.