Review: Man's Search for Meaning

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first half of this book as told from inside a concentration camp is the most affecting evidence of the indomitable human spirit I have ever read. The second half, about "logotherapy" has never resonated with me.

I read this book, roughly, every year for the eleven years '87-'98. I found it a powerful testament to the the awesome human potential. In Nietzschean proportions, it is a book on the will-to-live.

Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, observed that in concentration camps, those who broke first were the ones hoping for a quick end, followed by those who despaired it would never end. Survival, favored those who focused on immediate actions without fixating on outcomes.

The personal experience of meaning: "an inward peace".

I had to keep my intention to escape to myself, but my comrade seemed to guess that something was wrong (perhaps I showed a little nervousness). In a tired voice he asked me, ""You, too, are getting out?” I denied it, but I found it difficult to avoid his sad look. After my round I returned to him. Again a hopeless look greeted me and somehow I felt it to be an accusation. The unpleasant feeling that had gripped me as soon as I had told my friend I would escape with him became more intense. Suddenly I decided to take fate into my own hands for once. I ran out of the hut and told my friend that I could not go with him. As soon as I had told him with finality that I had made up my mind to stay with my patients, the unhappy feeling left me. I did not know what the following days would bring, but I had gained an inward peace that I had never experienced before. I returned to the hut, sat down on the boards at my countryman's feet and tried to comfort him; then I chatted with the others, trying to quiet them in their delirium.

I think my first reading of this was my first encounter with this illustrative story, if much better told by Boris Karloff in Targets.
Tom Schulte let you know that 'Boris Karloff in Targets' is available on BFI Blu-ray from 25 September and you can watch it on YouTube.

A rich and mighty Persian once walked in his garden with one of his servants. The servant cried that he had just encountered Death, who had threatened him. He begged his master to give him his fastest horse so that he could make haste and flee to Teheran, which he could reach that same evening. The master consented and the servant galloped off on the horse. On returning to his house the master himself met Death, and questioned him, "Why did you terrify and threaten my servant?" "I did not threaten him; I only showed surprise in still finding him here when I planned to meet him tonight in Teheran," said Death.

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