More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“And what about man? Are you sure that the human world is a terminal point in the evolution of the cosmos? Is it not conceivable that there is still another dimension, a world beyond man’s world; a world in which the question of an ultimate meaning of human suffering would find an answer?”
What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms. Logos is deeper than logic.
life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back.
Pleasure is, and must remain, a side-effect or by-product, and is destroyed and spoiled to the degree to which it is made a goal in itself.
True!
practiced paradoxical intention,
Attempt to do it and it ends up the opposite way
I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.”17
Peope are capable of sirvivng much more than they think
What he becomes—within the limits of endowment and environment—he has made out of himself. In
Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.
(1) turning suffering into a human achievement and accomplishment; (2) deriving from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for the better; and (3) deriving from life’s transitoriness an incentive to take responsible action.
that people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning.
observed that the aggressions only subsided when the youngsters dedicated themselves to a collective purpose—that is, the joint task of dragging out of the mud a carriage in which food had to be brought to their camp. Immediately, they were not only challenged but also united by a meaning they had to fulfill.3
the logotherapist is concerned with the potential meaning inherent and dormant in all the single situations one has to face throughout his or her life.
The first is by creating a work or by doing a deed. The second is by experiencing something or encountering someone; in other words, meaning can be found not only in work but also in love.
I only insist that meaning is available in spite of—nay, even through—suffering, provided, as noted in Part Two of this book, that the suffering is unavoidable.
“It is we ourselves who must answer the questions that life asks of us, and to these questions we can respond only by being responsible for our existence.”
he retained the freedom to choose how to respond to his suffering. He saw this not merely as an option but as his and every person’s responsibility to choose “the way in which he bears his burden.” Sometimes Frankl’s ideas are inspirational, as when he explains how dying patients and quadriplegics come to terms with their fate.
To achieve personal meaning, he says, 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 a question of the attitude one takes toward life’s challenges and opportunities, both large and small. A positive attitude enables a person to endure suffering and disappointment as well as enhance enjoyment and satisfaction.
