what does suffering mean to you?!
For Viktor Frankl and other unfortunate souls it meant being in prison in Nazi concentration camp. These camps were disgusting places, full of torture pain and suffering. Your chances of surviving were at most one in twenty eight. Prisoners found themselves rejoicing at the sight of a few peas and an otherwise watery bowl of soup. If that's a happiest part of someone's day it says a lot about how much they're suffering. Prisoners often worried about the well-being of their family and friends who had been separated from them it's hard to even imagine the suffering that the prisoners went through.
Amidst their suffering many prisoners contemplated and many performed suicide by running into the electric fences these prisoners ceased out hope they saw no future for themselves they felt that their lives had become meaningless and they'd lost the will to live. On the other hand some prisoners like Victor were able to find meaning in their suffering. In a world where people will commonly say why me whenever something bad happens I wanted to find out how someone could persevere through one of the darkest periods in humankind and find an answer to that question for themselves.
Prior to World War two essentialism was a fairly standard belief. This was the idea that we were born with an essence. An essence can be considered as a part of a person or thing that defines them without that defining quality they would no longer be that thing. For example the specific sperm and egg that made me are a part of my essence if it were a different sperm or a different egg I would no longer be me.Some philosophers believe there is a part of our essence we were born with like a purpose. The atrocities witnessed during World War two really made humanity question this. it's understandable to question whether life really has a predestined meaning if all someone experiences is suffering.
After World War the concept of existentialism became much more widespread. Existentialism is now the idea that we are born without a purpose and that we are left to define our own this is often stated as existence precedes essence which means that we are born first into a meaningless world and then we define our own meaning. Some people think that existentialism is a depressing view of the world because it says the world has no ultimate and objective meaning. Others disagree they may see it as a beautiful and liberating philosophy one that allows them to find a potentially infinite amount of meaning in the world and gives them the freedom to define that for themselves.
Every second every minute and every hour of every day they have the ability to define a new meaning for themselves. A new reason to live. Existentialism is the key philosophy that allowed Viktor Frankl to find meaning in a suffering during his time in concentration camps. To quote them
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.
Existentialists have the ability to take an adversity and overcome it or empower themselves by giving it meaning as circumstances change they give themselves the freedom to change their meanings and attitude they don't ask life what its meaning is but they're constantly being asked by life how they choose to live is their answer.
Frankel argues that humans do not seek attention with state in fact attentional estate can result in another problem the Victor called the existential vacuum a complete lack of purpose or meaninglessness in life Victor argues that it's within this vacuum that depression aggression and addiction can ride I believe that Victor were argued that in order to overcome this dilemma a certain amount of tension is required but this tension must be worth overcoming for the individual.
So it's not about avoiding suffering or stress at all costs the finding meaning and suffering or finding something worth suffering for I think this quote by Victor beautifully summarizes the key takeaway between stimulus and response
there's a space in that space is our power to choose our response in our response lies our growth and our freedom
Think of someone being cut off in rush-hour traffic in between the impulse that mean cut off and their reaction there's a space in this space they have the ability to choose the reaction to that impulse in the same way there's a space between our suffering and our reaction to it we have the ability to choose our reaction and give new meaning to our suffering in a way we become worthy of our suffering.
I feel it is important to know how to cope with difficult times and that is why I decided to make this. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this post. Have a great day and steem ON.