Man’s Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl

Recently, I read Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. He was a prisoner in Auschwitz and Dachau during WWII. The book demonstrates how, even in the most desolate, hopeless places, wo/man finds meaning. Despite inhumane, crushing working conditions, and severe mental, physical and emotional torture, Victor Frankl and some of his fellow prisoners, were able to explore a richer, deeper, and more intensified internal spiritual life.

Frankl’s book applies directly to my community here. People can and do find refuge in their internal spiritual lives, and in God. I have seen, on a deep level, the amazing human capacity for resilience, the ability to “spring back,” to adapt, and to transcend. I don’t always understand this, but it is perhaps not for me to understand.

Frankl states that our “attitudes are all we can control.” He speaks of men who remained positive, and who gave away their last piece of bread and who comforted others in the concentration camps, despite their own deep suffering. He says that these people “bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost….It is this spiritual freedom – which cannot be taken away – that makes life meaningful and purposeful.” We ARE our choices. The only thing we can indeed control is our attitude, our perspective on life, how we receive, understand, and react to any given situation.

He goes on, “suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.” As is often said, you have to know pain to know joy.

Frankl was extraordinary and incredibly inspirational. His experience provides perspective to any difficulties we may be facing in our lives. He tells us, “Man’s inner strength may raise him above his outward fate…Everywhere man is confronted with fate, with the chance of achieving something through his own suffering.”

One woman, who was about to die in the concentration camp, told Frankl, “I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard. In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishment seriously.” Even in her darkest hour, she saw the gift of perspective and enlightenment that had been afforded her. Frank responded by quoting Spinoza on ethics, “Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.”

Later in the book, Frank talks about love. He says that love is the meaning of life. Love transcends everything. Even in camp; he communed and communicated with his wife. It didn’t matter to him if she was still alive or dead. Their love transcended space and time, and her presence and their connection, even though they were separated physically, sustained and fortified him. True love knows no bounds.

At one point, Frankl saw his wife appear in the form of a bird, landing right before him as he performed his back-breaking manual labor in the freezing cold winter. Corrie Ten Boom, who hid Jews during WWII and eventually went to jail for it, accounts a similar story in her book The Hiding Place.

Frankl cites as the answer to the meaning of life, it “must consist…in right action and 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….(the) uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love.”

When asked to give a motivational talk to his fellow prisoners, Frankl quoted Nietzsche, “That which doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger,” and an unknown poet, “What you have experienced on earth, no power can take from you.” All of our experiences, whether perceived as “good” or “bad,” make us who we are, enriching our lives and our perspectives. Everything is a learning experience. For Frankl, “life in a concentration camp tore open the human soul and exposes its depths.” Upon being freed, he said that “after all he has suffered, there is nothing he need fear any more – except his God.”

Each of us have this choice every day, every minute: to open up or to shut down. I am also reading some of Brene Brown’s work on vulnerability, which is also related to the concept of gracious space: a spirit and a setting which invites the stranger and opens to learning in public. Each of the choices that we are constantly making MATTER.

Frankl’s work touched me on a deep level. It gave me the perspective that no matter how hard it gets, we are not alone. Many have suffered much more deeply. Somehow, humans adapt. I do not know how some people in Namibia survive, how they maintain their hope despite daunting odds. But it is not for me to know. I can simply sit in awe of it; I can just accompany and ally with my friends in the village where I work. I can only seek to understand. Frankl’s book helped to give me perspective on the state of suffering in Namibia and in the world. He was an extraordinary human being. He summoned the strength and courage to not only survive the concentration camps, but to actually benefit in terms of developing his spiritual life. He was able to inspire, motivate, and encourage his fellow prisoners, despite the horrific conditions in the camps, and the fact that they literally faced death each hour, each minute. Frankl accounts situation after situation in which fate seemed to save him; but it was also very much his will to live, to survive, to connect, and to find meaning, which kept him alive.

We can reach beyond the layers of modern life, beneath all of the incessant distractions, to our deeper selves, our higher selves, our greatest and most enlightened selves. Each of us matters. Whether you know it or not, you are an inspiration to someone, you are helping someone else just by your very existence. And beyond that, the choices we make from this moment forward shape and mold each of our destinies and our internal spiritual lives. I can only admire, and strive for, the deep spiritual awakening that Frankl speaks of.

Thanks for reading. Clearly, I strongly recommend the book!