While surfing I came across this book “Man’s Search For Meaning” written by Viktor Frankl. Inquisitive by the title I just started reading and let me tell you’ll it’s a wonderful book. The author who is a psychiatrist by profession writes his own experience in a concentration camp. He talks about the extreme suffering a Man can undergo in his life. He lost his entire family in the struggle and yet believes that there was something that life expected from him that kept him alive. The book has some beautiful quotes. People for no fault of theirs were imprisoned and treated as slaves and once they were found not fit to work they were sent to the gas chambers and burnt alive. They did not have the basic necessities of life like proper food, clothing and shelter. Yet, in the suffering they had a reason to be happy. They often imagined the world outside where they could have proper food, their dear ones and waited for the day to come when they were left free. Occasionally while working the author sees the image of his wife who had died in the prison, fading behind the dim lights of the sky . For the first time in his life he was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory."
-> Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
He calls the life in the concentration camp as a "provisional existence." A man who could not see the end of his "provisional existence" was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life.
He says a few people were able to attain human greatness even in their apparent worldly failure and death, an accomplishment which in ordinary circumstances they would never have achieved. They were people who had been going around consoling the others and giving them a hope that liberation is not far when their life’s were also in no way better. The author says to the others the mediocre and the half-hearted, the words of Bismarck could be applied: "Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come, and yet it is overalready."
He wonderfully explains the meaning of life.
“Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, they differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response. Sometimes the situation in which a man finds himself may require him to shape his own fate by action. At other times it is more advantageous for him to make use of an opportunity for contemplation and to realize assets in this way. Sometimes man may be required simply to accept fate, to bear his cross. Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right. When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.”
In the camp they were prisoners who treated his own companions badly. The prisoners found the lack of character in such men especially upsetting, while they were profoundly moved by the smallest kindness received from any of the guards. The author remembers how one day a foreman secretly gave him a piece of bread which he knew he must have saved from his breakfast ration. It was far more than the small piece of bread which moved him to tears at that time. It was the human "something" which this man also gave - the word and look which accompanied the gift.
He defines that there are two races of men in the world "race" of the decent man and the "race" of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people. In this sense, no group is of "pure race" - and therefore one occasionally found a decent fellow among the camp guards. He wonderful put forth that freedom is the negative aspect the positive aspect of it is responsibility.
I just loved these quotes from the book.
-> "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how," that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.”
->Live as if you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now.
->The truth - that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.
-> Don't aim at success--the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.
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