This one was a long awaited read for me.
I had come across this book back some years ago when I was going through the
self-development category in a book store. The name of the author “Viktor E.
Frankl” was all that I could remember about this book. But as it happened, once
again, I made my way back to this book (or, may be, this book made its way
towards me). After my first momentarily brief encounter with the book at some
forgotten bookstore, it was only after this one guest lecture during our
Training that the speaker mentioned about this book. In fact, the session was
mostly centered on this book because the speaker has had similar experience in
his life. Of course, unlike the one the Frankl had in the concentration camps.
And that’s when this book “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl rang a
bell in my mind and that’s how we met (I mean, the book and me).
Only after reading this book that I realized
how much I have missed about the life and its meaning from totally different
yet simplest possible perspective that the author has put in the book. This
article is just a humble and innocent attempt to present what I could grasp
from the book and found worth sharing to the world.
About the Author:
Prof. Dr. Viktor E. Frankl, born in
1905, spent three years in Auschwitz, Dachau and other concentration camps
during World War II.
The book is divided into three parts.
The first part is built around the author’s Experiences in the Concentration
Camps. The second part is focused on the Logotherapy
which was pioneered by the author. The concluding part is a postscript which
presents the Case for a Tragic Optimism. The first part
constitutes the significant part of the book and is the base for the successive
parts.
For the Camp Administration, the
prisoners in the concentration camp were nothing but just the numbers. The name,
the profession, past lives… none mattered. If someone died, it was just a
number. If someone had to be send to the gas chamber, again the prisoner was
just a number. As a matter of fact, the author was Number 119,104.
As a psychotherapist (or
logotherapist), he analyzed, through observations and experiences that the
inmates in the camp generally used to go through three phases of mental
reactions, viz.
a.
Initial admission to the camp: Shock
b.
Getting used to the camp routine:
Relative Apathy
c.
Release and Liberation
The author talks about his own
personal experiences as well as others regarding the first phase. He and other
1500 prisoners were brought to the camp on an overloaded train. The train stopped
just where they wouldn’t even want to be at the end of the world, the place
they dreaded the most—the Auschwitz, because the name itself was known for all
that was horrible: gas chambers, crematoriums and massacre. Immediately on
their arrival their fates were to be decided—will they live to see another day
or will they be sent to gas chamber right away. And their fates were then and
there determined by the simple waving of the finger of the SS officer in the
either direction, Left or Right. The significance of the finger game was later
known that it defined their existence or non-existence. Almost 90% of the 1500
who arrived at the Auschwitz that fateful day were sent to the left. They could
be later seen as the cloud forming up from the chimney a few hundred years off.
The author made it to his existence.
What would happen next? What was in the
store for them? For instance, when they were sent for the shower, skin naked,
they didn’t know if they would come out alive, for they always doubted if the
real water dripped from the water sprays.
In such adverse and harsh conditions
in the camps, the thought of suicide would dawn upon nearly everyone and the
camp provided enough opportunities for doing so. Take for example, running
through the wire—touching the electrically charged barbed-wire fence.
Coming to the second phase—the phase
of relative apathy, the prisoner achieved a kind of emotional death. What the
prisoner used to feel or experience on the first few weeks of the arrival at
the camp, later they got used to it—the scenes of tortures, beatings, screams,
and even the death of fellow inmates. Feelings were blunted. No pity, no
horror, no disgust… just nothing. Sick inmates and corpses couldn’t move them.
Corpses were dragged carelessly on the floor like a bag of potatoes.
Such emotional death was necessary for
the inmates to survive the condition. This insensibility worked as a protective
shell—the necessary mechanism of self-defense. Getting out alive was all that
mattered. A person thought of himself only, his existence being descended to
the level of animal life, the survival instinct.
It’s worth understanding the
psychological states and reactions that the author has illustrated in the book
which is not only the matter of academic interest, but can serve as a simple
guide to the life of a person. The author had set a rule for his life. He learnt
to let the fate take its course. Once, as he volunteered to go with the sick
inmates to the “rest camp”, which everyone thought was destined to be gas
chambers. But he decided to go anyway, even when his well-wisher offered to
amend the list. As it turned out, lucky for the author, they were actually
taken to the rest camp. No gas chambers. And shortly after he left, famine
surged in the previous camp. Cannibalism broke out. Pieces of flesh were
missing from the corpses.
This aforementioned account is related
by the author with the story of Death in Tehran. The story goes as follows:
A
rich and mighty Persian once walked in his garden with one of his servants. The
servant cried that he had just encountered Death, who had threatened him. He
begged his master to give him his fastest horse so that he could make haste and
flee to Teheran, which he could reach that same evening. The master consented
and the servant galloped off on the horse. On returning to his house the master
himself met Death, and questioned him, “Why did you terrify and threaten my
servant?” “I did not threaten him; I only showed surprise in still finding him
here when I planned to meet him tonight in Teheran,” said Death.
The lesson of the story: we cannot
escape our fate. We will inevitably meet it even when we are trying to avoid
it. We are our own worst enemies some times. The decisions we make for our
future are part of our fate.
Making choices in life and taking
initiatives whatsoever is one of the most difficult tasks for anyone. In the
concentration camps, some decisions meant either life death. However, the
author’s experience of camp life show that man does have a choice of action.
Even in the most adverse conditions, one can have his independence of mind.
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to
choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own
way. This is one of the most overlooked power of mind, the ignorance of which
leads to psychological and mental decay of the person in adverse situation.
People try to avoid suffering in life.
They tend to feel sorry for themselves. This is especially true for those who don’t
have resources at their disposal. The society has learnt to admire the material
wealth and happiness. And those who cannot afford such lifestyles feel sorry
for themselves. Unhappiness is one thing. They feel unhappy for their
unhappiness.
“But even in suffering, one can find
meaning. Life and Suffering are co-existent. IF there is a meaning in life at
all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable
part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life
cannot be complete. Everywhere man is confronted with fate, with the chance of
achieving something through his own suffering.” Frankl writes.
After all, suffering isn’t that bad.
It is a blessing in disguise. But the question is: Are you worthy of your
suffering? Dostoevski once said “There is one thing that I dread: not to be
worthy of my suffering”.
Therefore, you got to have faith in
yourself and future to make through your life—no matter your circumstances.
Nietzsche put it simply as “he who has why to live for can bear
with almost how”. Give yourself a why—a goal, for your life. The how
of your existence will make its way. But if you see no more sense in life and
see no point in carrying on, you will soon be lost. An anonymous person once
said to me: Live a BIGGER life… Not the lonnngggger one”. True.
Most of us ask oneself this question:
What can we expect from our life? This question is fallacious. We need to make
fundamental change in our attitude. It doesn’t really matter what we expected
from life, but rather what life expected from us. What is the responsibility of
our existence and its continuance in this universe? You have a responsibility
toward someone who is waiting for you—your parents, relatives, lover, or even
some pet. Or you have an unfinished work to do. A great message from the author
to all those potential suicide fanatics.
Life is a B!tch. It hardly goes your
way. But if you are still alive and reading this post, CONGRATULATION!!! You
have a reason for existence. You have a hope. You haven’t given up. I know you
have gone through a lot in your life and lot more is yet to come. Whatever you’ve
gone through, the pain and pleasure, the sufferings and celebrations, all these
can be and will be an asset for you in future. As Nietzsche said: “[that] what doesn’t
kill me, makes me [more] stronger”. (No… it wasn’t by METALLICA. Sorry to break
it to you.) What you have experienced so far in your life, no power on earth
can take from you. Live and cherish your life.
So what’s the Ultimate Meaning of Life?
There’s no one specific answer. It’s
like asking Lionel Messi or Christiano Ronalo what the best trick in the football.
It is unique for every individual, and even for an individual, the life of
meaning differs from situation to situation, day to day and hour to hour… like
for the prisoners of concentration camps.
When you find the meaning to life, you
find meaning in suffering. But that doesn’t mean that suffering is necessary.
If it is avoidable, the meaningful thing to do is to remove it from the equation.
To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.
Ask yourself: How do you see your life
from your deathbed? Do you see meaning in it? Have you lived it to the fullest?
Even if you are wealthy, full of financial success and social prestige but when
looking back at it from your deathbed, if you cannot see what all that was for…
it may not have been worth everything. But, in spite of your suffering, if you
see meaning in your life… well, there you go, Winner.
You change the calendar every year.
From the pessimistic POV, it’s like your calendar of life is thinning out with
every passing moment. But if you truly want to find meaning in life, live your
life in a way that you can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness you
have had in your life. You tear out the page from the calendar that you have
lived through, scribble the notes worthy of remembrance and stack it with the well-cherished
pile of your life’s experiences.
And what will be your choice when you
grow old if you are given the option to be young again? Do you find reason to
envy your younger self, feeling nostalgic over your lost youth? While the youth
may have yet uncovered possibilities for him in the future, isn’t it better to
have the realities in your past rather than just the fantasies and possibilities
of youth?
Finally, I would like to conclude with
this line from the book:
Live as if you were living already for
the second time, and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are
about to act now. It means that first, the present is past, and second, that
the past may yet be changed to be what you are meant to be. It’s like a Time
Machine, I guess. Just a thought!
I’d seriously recommend that you read
this short but deep book “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl. You
won’t regret it.
Drop Comments below!
©Linking the Myths 2020: Man’s Search
for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
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