What is Philosophy ?
Attitude that acts as a guiding principle for behaviour.
What is an analogy?
A thing which is comparable to something else in significant respects.
Preface:-
- Everything can be taken away from you, your education, your wealth, anything but still you possess one thing and that is the freedom to choose how you respond to any situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life but, you can always control how you will feel and respond.
- Our current mental-hygiene philosophy stresses on the idea that people ought to be happy, that unhappiness is a symptom of maladjustment. Such a value system might be responsible for the fact that, the burden of unavoidable unhappiness is increased
“He is not only unhappy but also ashamed of being unhappy”
How will this post serve you ?
- How was Viktore able to take his suffering and turn it into a life changing book that inspired millions of people? His “why?” made him come back alive from 5 concentration camps that is to meet his wife, to write manuscript (logotherapy) and this book is a piece of art and new world to psychology.
- This post tries to give you an insight into the book ‘Man’s search for meaning‘.
- It may help you find the meaning of life and see the world from a new perspective.
- how to see things when we don’t see the future
- The power to react ( respond ) to any situation is your choice
ANALOGY :-
To Draw an analogy, a man suffering is similar to the behaviour of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber it will fill the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind no matter whether the suffering is great or little therefore the ‘SIZE’ of human suffering is absolutely relative.
Story Death in Tehran :-
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.
What does this story mean?
A simple explanation would be , Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it
Or Getting Something you think you want can have unexpected consequences Or our life is already decided by something we can’t control
Different Interpretation :-
If there is a meaning in life at all then there must be a meaning in suffering And death. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life much like fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete. Turning away or running form a problem rarely solves it, the parable serves as a meditation on fate and death and the way we chose to face both
After camp one incident shared by Viktore in the book that brings chills down my spine : –
Long after Viktore had resumed normal life (that means a long time after viktore release from camp), somebody showed Viktore an illustrated weekly with photographs of prisoners lying crowded on their bunks, staring dully at a visitor. “Isn’t this terrible, the dreadful staring faces—everything
about it.”
“Why?” Viktore asked, for Viktore genuinely did not understand. At that moment Viktore saw it all again: at 5:00 A.M. it was still pitch dark outside. He was lying on the hard boards in a Concentration Camp earthen hut where about seventy of them were “taken care of.”
We were sick and did not have to leave camp for work; we did not have to go on parade. We could lie all day in our little corner in the hut and doze and wait for the daily distribution of bread (which, of course, was reduced for the sick) and for the daily helping of soup (watered down and
also decreased in quantity). But how content we were; happy in spite of everything. While we cowered against each other to avoid any unnecessary loss of warmth, and were too lazy and disinterested to move a finger unnecessarily, we heard shrill whistles and shouts from the square where the night shift had just returned and was assembling for roll call. The door was flung open, and the snowstorm blew into our hut. An exhausted comrade, covered with snow, stumbled inside to sit down for a few minutes. But the senior warden turned him out again. It was strictly forbidden to admit a stranger to a hut while a check-up on the man was in progress. How sorry I was for that fellow and how glad not to be in his skin at that moment, but instead to be sick and able to doze on in the sick quarters! What a lifesaver it was to have two days there, and perhaps even two extra days after those All this came to my mind when I saw the photographs in the magazine.
When I explained, my listeners understood why I did not find the photograph so terrible: the people shown on it might not have been so unhappy after all
Meaning of life ( if you haven’t read above paragraphs please read it will serve as base to the Viktore philosophy )
- What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude towards life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in 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
How to Find Meaning in Life :-
- By creating work or doing a deed.
- By experiencing something or encountering someone.
- By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.
The first :- The way of achievement or accomplishment, is quite obvious.
The second:-
Finding a meaning in life is by experiencing something—such as goodness, truth and beauty —by experiencing nature and culture or, last but not least, by experiencing another human being in his very uniqueness;—by loving him.
The Third:-
When we are no longer able to change a situation— just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer —we are challenged to change ourselves.
Let me cite a clear-cut example form the book:-
Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me(Viktore) because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years ago and whom he had loved above all else. Now, how could I help him? What should I tell him? Well, I refrained from telling him anything but instead confronted him with the question, “What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?” “Oh,” he said, “for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!” Whereupon I replied, “You see, Doctor, such suffering has been spared her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering—to be sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.” He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left my office. In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
Note :-
But let me make it perfectly clear that in no way is suffering necessary to find meaning. I only insist that meaning is possible even in spite of suffering—provided, certainly, that the suffering is unavoidable. If it were avoidable, however, the meaningful thing to do would be to remove its cause, be it psychological, biological or political. To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic
by:- Saurabh Ramesh Kacholiya
Edited by :- Kalyani Patil
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