Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist who survived the Nazi labour camp said in one of his lectures:
"..now, the present, is everything; as it holds the eternally new question of life for us....As to what awaits us in the future, we don't need to know that, any more than we are able to know."
He then shared a true story about a black man who was sentenced to life imprisonment and was being deported to Devil's Island. At sea, a fire broke out on the ship and he saved ten lives. He was subsequently pardoned.
Frankl then said that if anyone were to ask the prisoner before he embarked on the journey whether there was any meaning in life for him, he would have shook his head.
According to Frankl asking the meaning of life has to be in the context of the here and now. He used the allegory of a reporter pointlessly asking a world chess master prior to the game what will be the best chess move. What Frankl was alluding to is one has to act according to what the moment demands, " a deed that we complete, or a work that we create ".
Once a young man challenged Frankl saying it was easy for Frankl to find meaning or purpose in work. The young man lamented that his work as an assistant tailor had no purpose or impact. Using this encounter , Frankl explained that meaning is not about what profession a person holds or where someone is in life. It is about " how he occupies his circle in life and fills his place...Whether a life is fulfilled does not depend on how great one's radius of action is, but rather only on whether the circle is fully filled out".
Frankl thinks that happiness can not be pursued, Rather it is an outcome that arises spontaneously when one pursues his duty in life.
( I am halfway through the book "Yes to Life in Spite of Everything" ). It's a Gem.
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