Man’s Search for Meaning
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
- Viktor E Frankl
Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist and also a Holocaust survivor. His practice was founded on the theory of Logos - or the Greek word for meaning. He uses his story as an example of how meaning and our ability to connect to the deeper inner meaning of what matters to us is what ultimately sustains our existence, no matter the circumstances.
It's not a light read, but I found that Frankl used his experience in a way that gave context and reality to the circumstances without being overly dramatic or exploitive.
In it, he writes about his experiences in the concentration camps and his survival from the perspective/lens of meaning. Frankl explains that in psychological terms, life in the camps could be referred to as a “provisional existence of unknown limit”. The prisoners had no idea when the war would be over, how long they’d be held captive and if they’d even be able to survive. Because there was no end in sight, it was extremely difficult for the inmates to set goals for themselves.
“ The Latin work finis has two meanings: the end or the finish and a goal to reach. A man who could not see the end of his provisional existence was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. He ceased livening for the future, in contrast to a man in normal life. Therefore, the whole structure of his inner life changed; signs of decay set in. The unemployed workers, for example, is in similar position. His existence has become provisional in a certain sense he cannot live for the future or aim at a goal. Research work done on unemployed miners has shown they suffer from a peculiar sort of deformed time - inner time - which is a result of their unemployed state.
Prisoner’s too suffered from this strange time experience. In camp, a small time unit, a day, for example filled with hourly tortures appeared endless. A larger time unit, perhaps a week, seemed to pass very quickly. “
