Thursday Treasure: Man's Search For Meaning

A couple of years ago I read a book called Man's Search For Meaning by Victor Frankyl.  It was written in 1946 and chronicles his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp.  I was whining a bit the other day and questioning whether my life would have a positive meaning.  I remembered the book and pulled it out to read it.  My attitude changed immediately and it is my Thursday Treasure.

Victor Frankyl was a noted neurologist and a psychiatrist who spent 3 years from 1942-1945 in several different concentration camps.  His experiences are detailed in the first half of the book and are heart wrenching.  Despite his suffering, he was able to observe and document the effects of severe stress on humans.  He then postulates his theory of behavior in meaning and logotherepy in the second part of the book.  There are many jewels to be found but I'll just hit on a couple that struck me.

First is that there are only two races of humans:  decent and indecent.  He discusses decent prison guards and indecent prisoners.  How true that is when we make false assumptions based on our perception of one's station in life.

The second is found in this passage.  It is as profound as anything I have ever read.

"... We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor's arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us."
That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.
The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way  – an honorable way  – in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory."

If you have not read this book do so now.  It is a must read and I promise it will change your outlook on life.  At any point in your life, whether in sorrow or joy, it applies.

"The meaning of life is found in every moment of living, life never ceases to have meaning, even in suffering and death." Victor Frankyl