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Man's Search for Meaning

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4 pointschistev5 comments

I hate that book. I have met more than one troubled teenage girl who read it and concluded that her high school was like a death camp. Imagining your life is really that bad is a way to succumb not survive.

So you hate the book because of the way someone interpreted it?

I think that misinterpretation is endemic. Like the imagery in Pink Floyd's the Wall is about a psychotic break, not about what life is like.

Those teenage girls aren't the only one, but just memorable to me because one of them talked passionately about it before she dropped out of an acting class in which we are preparing a scene. You can see the pathology in a lot of discussions about it and it's connected with a fascination with "total institutions" that you see in readings and misreadings of Goffman, Foucault, etc. Since One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest colonized the public imagination we lost our safe spaces for schizophrenics so now you can't go downtown without being bit by one their pitbulls -- and Amazon, Uber, Doordash and the like that benefit from the annihilation of community are laughing all the the bank.

If you're in Gaza or some place like that your life is not like life in a concentration camp, full stop.

Pay attention to these warning signs. The Prussian System puts tremendous social pressure on many girls. Outcomes can be tragic. Those girls often do well in different schools. Boys mostly fail to learn and get punished under the Prussian System but they tend to suffer less social pressure. If a book about prison makes you think of your school something is very wrong.

Over a week ago I was feeling sad and made an Ask HN post asking for the meaning of life [1]

Three days ago, I was browsing an old HN thread titled - Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2013? [2]

One of the mentioned books was Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. It wasn't the first time I had seen that book mentioned. I had even attempted to read it some years ago but I stopped for whatever reason.

But I decided to read it this time, and I loved it. It's one of my favorite books I've read thus far this year (I've read 15 books so far this year).

Here are some interesting quotes from the book -

1. What did the prisoner dream about most frequently? Of bread, cake, cigarettes, and nice warm baths. The lack of having these simple desires satisfied led him to seek wish-fulfillment in dreams. Whether these dreams did any good is another matter; the dreamer had to wake from them to the reality of camp life, and to the terrible contrast between that and his dream illusions.

I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare. Since I had always been especially sorry for people who suffered from fearful dreams Or deliria, I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand which was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do. At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him.

2. "In psychiatry there is a certain condition known as delusion of reprieve. The condemned man, immediately before his execution, gets the illusion that he might be reprieved at the very last minute, No one could yet grasp the fact that everything would be taken away. all we possessed, literally, was our naked existence."

3. After hours of delay the train left the station. And there was the street-my street! The young lads who had a number of years of camp life behind them and for whom such a jour- ney was a great event stared attentively through the Peephole. I began to beg them, t0 entreat them, to let me stand in front for one moment only. tried to explain how much a look through that window meant to me just then. My request was refused with rudeness and cynicism: "You lived here all those years? Well, then you have seen quite enough already!"

4. Does this not bring to mind the story of Death in Teheran? 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.

5. It goes without saying that not each and every case of depression is to be traced back to a feeling of meaninglessness, nor does suicide --in which depression sometimes eventuates- -always result from an existential vacuum. But even if each and every case of suicide had not been undertaken out of a feeling of meaninglessness, it may well be that an individual's impulse to take his life would have been overcome had he been aware of some meaning and purpose worth living for.

For those who might be interested in a related book about the horrors of the concentration camps, another book I recommend is Night by Elie Wiesel. That book gave me chills. I wrote about it briefly on my blog post here [3]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48577083

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6975638

[3] https://www.rxjourney.net/list-of-books-i-finished-reading-i...

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