In the quietness of dawn I finished re-reading Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning,[1] it is a book imbued with deep insights into the human condition, and although it has no pretensions to be so, I deem it a spiritual classic. The first part, and core of the book entitled Experiences In A Concentration Camp is eighty-four pages, each one of those pages carries the weight of someone who survived four camps, and by moments entered states not of sentimental escapism, but of transcendence.
Are there words which can truly describe such horrors, brutality, violence, as permeated such places as Dachau in 1944? What was, if any, the meaning of it all? Why is this happening? Who am I? Why am I here?
He writes,
“What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life — daily and hourly... Life ultimately means taking responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”
The second part of the book deals with Logotherapy[2] the concluding chapter of which is aptly entitled, The Case For For A Tragic Optimism. Dr. Frankl recounts, in the camps people did not blur into a ‘uniform expression’, “on the contrary, people became more different; people unmasked themselves, both the swine and the saints... You may of course ask whether we really need to refer to “saints.” Wouldn’t it suffice just to refer to decent people? It is true that they form a minority. More than that, they always will remain a minority. And yet I see therein the very challenge to join the minority. For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.
So, let is be alert — alert in a twofold sense:
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of.
And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.”
[1] Viktor E. Frankl Man’s Search For Meaning, Washington Square Press 1984 edition.
[2] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo#55D501
The Greek term logos will be familiar to students of theology. It is often translated as the "Word" or "Will" of God. In a broader sense, it can be viewed as "that which gives reason for being." Dr. Frankl prefers the simple translation of logos as "meaning."
Therapy [ˈθɛrəpɪ] n pl –pies (Medicine)
a. the treatment of physical, mental, or social disorders or disease
b. (in combination) physiotherapy electrotherapy
From New Latin therapia, from Greek therapeia attendance; see therapeutic.
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