A Meaning I Don't Want To Understand - Week 6/7

What does a bad day sound like to you?

Viktor Frankl's worst days looked like this. His possession and identity documents were confiscated. He was reduced to a skeleton with a rag and a number. He worked barefoot in ice and snow for 20 hours a day, eating only a small piece of bread and watery soup. He was hit, humiliated, and received multiple death threats. He had no way to communicate with his family and had to live with the thought that they were most likely dead (and they actually were). These worst days of his lasted for more than 1,000 days, when he survived four different concentration camps.

And in these worst days, he found meaning in life. A meaning that was enough to help him survive.

To say the least, those were unlikely circumstances where meaning could be found. The conditions were worse than any nightmare a novelist could imagine. But Frankl had to, because any man without a purpose and meaning had no chance of surviving the concentration camps, as millions of his comrades did.

According to Frankl, there are purposes in life through creation, enjoyment, and suffering.

But there is also purpose in that life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man’s attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. A creative life and a life of enjoyment are banned to him. If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.

Creation and enjoyment are easy to understand. But I doubt if Van Gogh could draw, Elon Musk could build companies, or Buddha could find peace if they were put in Frankl's position.

So suffering is the only remaining part left in Frankl's equation above.

"If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering," Frankl wrote.

While beautifully written, I can hardly understand the conclusion. Why would there be meaning in suffering - in being rejected in job applications, in getting injured, in losing what you value, and in saying goodbye to loved ones?

In writing this piece, I went back and forth in explaining the statement above. "One only knows the sweetness of life after learning the bitterness." Or, "to live well is to take the difficult path."

I took them all out because I do not believe that, and have no experience to support those clichés. I want no suffering in my life, the real suffering that everyone wishes to evade.

Instead, I concluded that it is okay that I do not understand this now. That is what makes reading a precious experience. We can look into the crystallisation of the brilliant minds who went through the most unusual experiences. With Frankl's experience, an unbearable weight is given to the otherwise shallow and illogical statement, even though we do not immediately get that.

Some books are to be read again and again. Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning is one of them. One day, when we inevitably suffer enough, we may understand how suffering could bring meaning to life. Now, it is enough to learn that someone who has gone through the worst of human experience says there is meaning in all the suffering. (It also will not hurt to be reminded of and grateful that we have unlimited food, warmth, and comfort.) This is a helpful philosophy to keep in mind and slowly digest over the years. A real philosophy should have a real positive impact on people, unlike jurisprudence or socialism.

I wish for a life of creation and enjoyment, and minimal suffering. More importantly, I wish that I were ready for the suffering ahead, and however difficult, I will find meaning in it.