Life-Changing Literary Experience

Viktor Frankl, 1905-1997

I'm going to go ahead and use the words life-changing without quotes or apologies here, for Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning.  There aren't many books like this. He asks questions about the meaning of life and suffering that are almost too important to take seriously until it's absolutely unavoidable, but that point of inevitability reaches us all.  This book that gets to the heart of what I'm always asking myself as I come to grips with life in general, and particularly my life with CFS. 

Viktor Frankl has fearsome credentials for talking about the meaning of life. He was a Jewish psychiatrist in Vienna in the 1930s, working on his philosophy of "logotherapy" when he was taken prisoner and sent to Auschwitz. Although he barely survived the camp, he came out of it with his faith in his ideas strengthened: the main motivation of man is not pleasure, or even happiness, but the will to find meaning in our lives. He discovered that the meaning he found in his apparently senseless suffering gave him the will to endure it. He quotes Nietzsche several times in the book: "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."

"Man's search for meaning" sounds like a vague phrase, but Frankl emphasized that
all meaning is specific and situated. He says, "the meaning of life differs from man to
man, from day to day, from hour to hour...to put the question in general terms would be
comparable to the question posed to a chess champion: 'Tell me, master, what is the
best move in the board?'" He sees three ways to find meaning in life: Through a creative
work or task, through an experience or relationship, and finally, in the attitude we take
towards unavoidable suffering. In our lives, we will alternate between finding meaning
in all three.

Frankl seems to use the word "meaning" where other people might use words like "God"
or "love" or "the best course of action given the circumstances." He comes from a
scientific background, but you can't talk about finding meaning in atrocity without
becoming somewhat mystical. It's easy to see the value of suffering when it ends; you
can go back to your normal life more awake, sensitive and compassionate. But what if
it doesn't end, at least not in this life? In Frankl's mind, if the meaning of suffering were
dependent upon such happenstance as whether one escapes or not, that would render
either outcome meaningless. To find meaning in mortality is the ultimate challenge life
gives us, and one we must accept.

As I read, I found it inevitable, as I imagine most readers would, to compare my life
with his. I hope that for most of us, this experience is futile and surreal. The suffering
he endured in concentration camps is so beyond my experience that I can't actually
assimilate it. It makes me feel profoundly grateful, but at the same time, the feeling is
fleeting. Ultimately, I don't think two people's suffering can be compared. But he didn't
write this book for us to make comparisons; he meant for each of us to examine our lives on their own terms.

I sought out this book because I'm trying to find meaning in a life that's very different from the one I imagined myself leading.  Many of the ways I thought I would find meaning in my life aren't currently available to me. I wanted an occupation that would help the community and give me a sense of pride and independence. I wanted daily interactions with my friends, not to mention some kind of love life, and of course, the elemental pleasure of moving my body through the world. I'm terribly sad that I don't have thosethings.

But there are also many things in his categories that I can do. I've always wanted to
write fiction and make art, which I'm doing now because there aren't many other options
or excuses. I still have my family and friends I can keep in touch with thanks to my best
friend the Internet, and those relationships are more important than ever. I can not let
this disease destroy my soul, and I can be damn proud of that. There are times when
all I can do is lie down and feel pain, and my victory over it lies in not throwing the pain
onto those around me.

I was moved to read about what he had to say about the chronically and terminally
ill. While we look to him for inspiration, he found inspiration in people like us. He was
a doctor and no stranger to the failure of the body. He tells the story of a death from
typhus he witnessed in the concentration camp:

This young woman knew that she would die in the next few days. But when I talked
to her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge. "I am grateful that fate has hit
me so hard," she told me. "In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual
accomplishments seriously." Pointing through the window of the hut, she said. "This
tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness.". Through the window she could see
just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms. "I often talk
to this tree, she said to me. I was startled and didn't know how to take her words. Was
she delirious? Did she have occasional hallucinations? Anxiously I asked her if the tree
replied. "Yes." What did it say to her? She answered, "It said to me, 'I am here--I am
here--I am life, eternal life.'"

I'm not dying, thank God, but I can relate to that story. I was spoiled, too. I also take
great comfort in the view out my window, and I wish that trees would talk to me.