This book, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl is perhaps one of the most influential works in my life. I stumbled upon it in the polytechnic's library during my final semester (there is a reason for this...)
In it, Viktor discusses his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, and his later development of logotherapy. In a very humanist perspective, Viktor espouses that every person has the freedom of choice even in the most stressful and depressing situations.
In my mind after so many years after reading this book was that Viktor made an observation that the death rate between Christmas 1944 and New Year 1945 was highest in the concentration camp. The reason he concluded was that the prisoners would lose all the naive hope of ever been liberated from the concentration camp and return home. As the time came closer, they would then be so disappointed and and also lose their courage to continue living. He says "The prisoner who has lost faith in the future - his future was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and become subject to mental and physical decay".
He also cited Nietzsche's words " He who has the why to live for can bear to live with almost any how".
Perhaps, I felt the paragraph in page 98 below reflected some philosophical thoughts by him on the meaning of life:
"What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves, We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. 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."
There you are...
In it, Viktor discusses his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, and his later development of logotherapy. In a very humanist perspective, Viktor espouses that every person has the freedom of choice even in the most stressful and depressing situations.
In my mind after so many years after reading this book was that Viktor made an observation that the death rate between Christmas 1944 and New Year 1945 was highest in the concentration camp. The reason he concluded was that the prisoners would lose all the naive hope of ever been liberated from the concentration camp and return home. As the time came closer, they would then be so disappointed and and also lose their courage to continue living. He says "The prisoner who has lost faith in the future - his future was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and become subject to mental and physical decay".
He also cited Nietzsche's words " He who has the why to live for can bear to live with almost any how".
Perhaps, I felt the paragraph in page 98 below reflected some philosophical thoughts by him on the meaning of life:
"What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves, We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. 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."
There you are...
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