Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it
...such a state of strain, coupled with the constant necessity of concentrating on the task of staying alive, forced the prisoner’s inner life down to a primitive level
If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering...
Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death
Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete
The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even under the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to his life
venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life
"suffering is not necessary to find meaning, only that meaning is possible in spite of suffering"
Treatment by others
Dostoevski’s statement that flatly defines man as a being who can get used to anything, we would reply, “Yes, a man can get used to anything, but do not ask us how”
The prisoner of Auschwitz, in the first phase of shock, did not fear death. Even the gas chambers lost their horrors for him after the first few days—after all, they spared him the act of committing suicide
The prisoner passed from the first to the second phase; the phase of relative apathy, in which he achieved a kind of emotional death...
The most painful part of beatings is the insult which they imply...
...I had to listen to a man judge my life who had so little idea of it
“no one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them”
it is not the physical pain which hurts the most (and this applies to adults as much as to punished children); it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all
suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice
Reaction to one's condition
Phases
1. Shock
2. Apathy
emothional death
necessary form of self-defense
The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living
...The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire
...then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart...
...the salvation of man is through love and in love
most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge...
...one could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or
...one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners
often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself...
...saying yes to life in spite of everything
Just consider the mass neurotic syndrome so pervasive in the young generation:
there is ample empirical evidence that the three facets of this syndrome are due to what is called in logotherapy “the existential vacuum,” a feeling of emptiness and meaninglessness...
1. depression
2. aggression
3. addiction
Results in...
wishing to do what other people do (conformism), or
doing what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism)
fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and that hyper-intention makes impossible what one wishes
We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation...
...when facing a fate that cannot be changed...
...for what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best...
...which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph...
...turn one’s predicament into a human achievement
man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips
Some men lost all hope, but it was the incorrigible optimists who were the most irritating companions
Our Outcomes
Lessons (other than meaning)
Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually
It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful
...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 of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly
Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation
You cannot control what happens to you in life
but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you
what matters is to make the best of any given situation
let us be alert—alert in a twofold sense:
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of
And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake
people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning. To be sure, some do not even have the means
optimism in the face of tragedy and in view of the human potential which at its best always allows for...
(1) turning suffering into a human achievement and accomplishment
(2) deriving from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for the better
(3) deriving from life’s transitoriness an incentive to take responsible action
Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment
every human being has the freedom to change at any instant
man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes—within the limits of endowment and environment—he has made out of himself
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
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task
Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now
happiness
human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy
"happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue"
Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success...
you have to let it happen by not caring about it
success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication
The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself
man does not live by welfare alone
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
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...
...too choose one’s own way
From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in this world, but only these two—
the “race” of the decent man
the “race” of the indecent man
Conclusions (the meaning)
One should not search for an abstract meaning of life
Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning
the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment
we can discover this meaning in life in three different ways:
(1) by creating a work or doing a deed
(2) by experiencing something or encountering someone
(3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering
To achieve personal meaning, one must transcend subjective pleasures by doing something that points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself … by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love
it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statements
no cliches
no platitudes
no mottos
no mantras
the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system
...striving to find a meaning in one’s life...the primary motivational force in man--a will to meaning...
in contrast to the will to pleasure--"the pleasure principle"
in contrast to the will to power--“striving for superiority”
Doesn’t the final meaning of life, too, reveal itself, if at all, only at its end, on the verge of death?
doesn’t this final meaning, too, depend on whether or not the potential meaning of each single situation has been actualized to the best of the respective individual’s knowledge and belief?
how does a human being go about finding meaning?
All we can do is study the lives of people who seem to have found their answers to the questions of what ultimately human life is about as against those who have not
there are three main avenues on which one arrives at meaning in life...
1st - by creating a work or by doing a deed
2nd - by experiencing something or encountering someone; in other words, meaning can be found not only in work but also in love
3rd - even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself. He may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph
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
three possible sources for meaning...
in work (doing something significant)
in love (caring for another person)
in courage during difficult times
“The meaning of your life is to help others find the meaning of theirs”
“Sometimes man may be required simply to accept fate, to bear his cross.” (Amor Fati)
Amor Fati
"That which does not kill me, makes me stronger”
Nietzsche
“There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings”