Ok so today I finished Viktor E. Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy.” Actually a very interesting read! Here’s a little background since most of you have never heard of, much less read, this book (shout out to Daddy who has– It’s ok, it didn’t tell me how to become a prima ballerina either… Stupid book). Viktor Frankl was a Jewish, Austiran psychiatrist and neurologist who survived four concentration camps during World War II. Before entering the camps, his concentrations were depression and suicide. As a survival method, he observed life in a concentration camp from an academic standpoint looking for the meaning of life. In the first half of the book, he describes life in a concentration camp. The second half of the book describes his theories of “logotherapy” and “tragic optimism.” While I have no intention of explaining all of his theories to you, I thought I’d give you a few quotes from the book to chew on. I found them very interesting.
“There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose.” (taken from G.E. Lessing)
“The salvation of man is through love and in love.”
“Humor is another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation.”
“Suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore, the ‘size’ of human suffering is absolutely relative.”
“That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.” (taken from Nietzche)
“What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.” (taken from German poet)
“Man’s search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health.”
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” (taken from Nietzche)
“Our current mental-hygiene philosophy stresses the idea that people ought to be happy, that unhappiness is a symptom of maladjustment. Such a value system might be responsible for the fact that the burden of unavoidable unhappiness is increased by unhappiness about being unhappy.” (Edith Weisskopf-Joelson speaking of Americans)
“The fear is the mother of the event.”
“There is no reason to pity old people. Instead, young people should envy them. It is true that the old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that. Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past–the potentialities they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized–and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.”
“But everything great is just as difficult to realize as it is rare to find.” (taken from Ethics of Spinoza)
Ok so I know that that is a lot of quotes but there were SO many good ones, and I prefer quoting him than just droning on about his philosophy (which is really very interesting). Not to sound like I’m writing a review, but I encourage you to read this book as it is a thinker but also an easy read (it’s only about 150 pages long–100 of which is a narrative about the concentration camp). That’s all for now. May you all be blessed as He pours good and perfect gifts upon you!
