“He who has a why to live for can bear any how” -Nietzsche
On his book “Man’s search for meaning” , Viktor E.Frankl who was cast into the Nazi concentration camp, laboring the time it takes before being driven to the gas chamber to meet the same end as his fellows, was deprived from every human right, both physical and emotional traumas were capable for slowly killing him before he gets executed, being burnt to death, but he survived !
Each one of us is seeking happiness throughout the course of life, trying to meet life expectations, fulfilling physiological and safety needs, food, warmth, a shelter, the need of belonging, having someone to share their happiness with, building relationships, self-esteem needs as accomplishing things, achieving goals, that’s on being alive, right ? But what is left to someone sentenced to death?
Dr.Frankl stresses over the fact that one finds meaning in life in doing something significant, as caring for someone, or by finding courage in difficult circumstances, for him life isn’t about fulfillments and achievements, even if for millions of people it is just that.
You must have heard of people who succeeded (success in a materialistic perception), but they suddenly lost the zest of life, and ended up committing suicide, you may wonder why they put their life to an end?
Success is like happiness the more you perceive it as a target and run after it, the more it slips away from your control, if you aim avidly to succeed, and do not dedicate your work to a cause, you will immediately lose excitement about it when achieved.
All what Dr.Frankle had been doing over time was suffering, to save himself he had to find meaning in suffering, as we give it that meaning by the way in which we respond to it, strength isn’t just physical, strength lies in one’s mind, on how they accept fate, fate that is above all and cannot be changed.
He knew he was left with two things, his bliss who was the memory of his wife, who throughout his unpleasant residence in the camp was his reason to stay alive as he puts it “The salvation is through love and in love” , and the sufficient strength to persist and suffer in an honorable way, he gave his suffering a meaning and found a refuge in the emptiness, he remained solid in front of everything even if he was undressed from who he was (the respect he aspired) he decided that his value as a human being transcends the camp life « We all had once been or had fancied ourselves to be ‘somebody’. Now we were treated like complete nonentities, the consciousness of one’s inner value is anchored in higher more spiritual things, and cannot be shaken by camp life”
Dr.Frankl states that man can keep intact a kind of a spiritual freedom, he can maintain free in his mind even in sorrowful conditions with perpetual stress, when one masters his own mind, he might float above all what holds him back.
“There is only one thing that I dread, not be worthy of my sufferings” -Dostoevski
We decide how to see life, barren with no zest or flourishing as a spring, suffering is ineradicable , giving it a meaning makes us raise above it, and eventually grow spiritually beyond ourselves .
