Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of those he treated in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory—known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")—holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.
His memoir chronicled the atrocities of his experiences in a thoughtful, non-sensational way. This is where our primary discussion took place, as we dissected human nature's motives, capacity for suffering, ability to overcome pain, choice in the face of tribulation, and the like.
One thing really struck me, and was the most painful thing to read. Throughout all the terrible physical and mental suffering--and the stories were as riveting as they were disturbing--what kept the prisoners going was that future day of liberation. Life could and would be better, they would reunite with their loved ones, their talents and abilities would be exercised again. In a phrase, there would be meaning to their suffering. But when many people returned to their former lives they found that things were not as they'd imagined--families were dead, jobs were gone, homes were unoccupied, people didn't care.
When, on his return, a man found that in many places he was met only with a shrug of the shoulders and with hackneyed phrases, he tended to become bittter and to ask himself why he had gone through all that he had. When he heard the same phrases nearly everywhere--"We did not know about it," and "We, too, have suffered," then he asked himself, have they really nothing better to say to me?"
. . . A man who for years had though he had reached the absolute limit of all possible suffering now found that suffering has no limits and that he could suffer still more, and still more intensely.
Doesn't that just tear at your heart?
It made me realize that while the Holocaust was particularly horrific, there are people throughout the world who suffer the same torture and suffering. Listen to the news and you'll hear about Darfur, Sierra Leone, Rwanda. Those are group atrocities you actually hear about. And yet most suffering is anonymous. What about the individual's capacity for fear, suffering, loss . . . or hope?
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.
So I have looked deeper into my soul to put words to that nebulous abstract that guides my days: my life's meaning. If faced in a similar circumstance, would I be one of those who turned to bitterness, hopelessness, or apathy? Or would I find that inner courage to actually live, to look forward to another day, to show a kindness and try my best--because my life has meaning?
And . . . Do I do that now?
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