Due to my newfound abundance of free time, I’ve been rereading old books. Most recently was Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning – “the classic tribute to hope from the Holocaust.” I remember feeling moved after my first reading, like Frankl discovered the solutions to life’s problems. The second time around, I not only rediscovered the beauty in Frankl’s message, but it planted a root in my own life – in a time where I am ultimately alone, unmotivated, and yearning for the pandemic to end.
Frankl was a prisoner of the Holocaust and survived the concentration camps. Before this, he was an academic in the fields of neurology and psychiatry. He continued his practice after the war ended, even developing the third school of Freud’s psychoanalysis, which he called logotherapy.
Man’s Search for Meaning is based on his personal experience in the camps, analyzing the behavior of the prisoners and guards. He explains the psychoanalytic views of why guards were so brutal, and why certain prisoners outlived others when they were put under the same conditions. His conclusion is based on a prisoner’s psyche being hopeful versus hopeless. In his observations, the prisoner who is hopeful – who prays, imagines talking to their family, writes poetry internally, etc. – has a greater chance of surviving than a prisoner who refuses to get out of bed, even if the latter receives more food and warmer clothes. His research is revolutionary. It has allowed for a deeper understanding of the human consciousness that scientists wouldn’t have if it weren’t for Frankl surviving the camps.
“The prisoner who is hopeful – who prays, imagines talking to their family, writes poetry internally, etc. – has a greater chance of surviving than a prisoner who refuses to get out of bed, even if the latter receives more food and warmer clothes.”
We can’t imagine or relate to the horrors of the concentration camps, and this isn’t about trying to. It is about applying the things Frankl learned in the camps to explain our lives today. More specifically, how we cope with the pandemic. He introduces the idea of a “provisional existence” (79) that a man enters when he stumbles into a concentration camp. Everything he knew as “normal” changed. For me, being in quarantine doesn’t feel like real life. It feels like purgatory – something happened before, something will happen after, but this is just a period of waiting.
When the prisoners entered the camp, they entered into a temporary existence with no visible meaning or end. They weren’t a person, but a number, with no control of the world around them. And without any inclination of an end date, they couldn’t look towards the future. I’ve felt similarly, especially when it comes to finding meaning behind the pandemic. I think: Why is this happening? What did we do to deserve this? Coping with the pandemic has been especially tough not only because of these questions, but because it has no clear end. A “provisional existence” is bearable when an ending is in sight. But when every glimpse of hope is squashed by the following news story, the end becomes more and more unattainable.
For a person under these conditions, Frankl describes a “strange time-experience” which he simplifies as that of “inner time” (79). This experience is paradoxical, where days seem endless, but weeks fly by. This contributed to the early disorientation that a prisoner experienced. Their days were filled with excruciating work and slow starvation, and the constancy of it made their days long but weeks blend together.
This “inner time” can also be attributed to someone in quarantine, because their days are filled with ultimate nothingness. This isolation causes Frankl’s idea of an “existential vacuum,” which is the inability to find meaning in life. It “manifests itself…in a state of boredom” (111) – something people in quarantine can relate to. My days lack purpose, like I’m crawling towards each coming hour for my next meal, next episode, next book. The existential vacuum sucks me in on a daily basis, but having been in the quarantine for so long (going on seven weeks now), it seems like no time has passed.
“This isolation causes Frankl’s idea of an ‘existential vacuum,’ which is the inability to find meaning in life, and it ‘manifests itself in a state of boredom.'”
When presented with this provisional existence, Frankl observed two responses: “one can make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate” (81). In quarantine, I see people starting their first novel and people watching the same TV shows over and over again. In all honesty, I am more on the “vegetate” side of the spectrum. It is difficult to find motivation to be productive when it feels like the world is on pause. Lying in bed all day was easy before the pandemic. Now, somehow, it is easier.
According to Frankl, the majority of the prisoners chose the option of lying in bed, refusing orders, and “smoking a cigarette until they die.” It would be ignorant and cruel to compare these prisoners to someone vegging in the quarantine – the two situations are worlds apart, and the prisoners experienced the epitome of suffering. But relating strictly to the quarantine, choosing indolence over activity fuels the existential vacuum. Apathy creates hopelessness, and lying in bed all day will metaphorically kill us.
Frankl admits that maintaining the mindset of hopefulness was tiring, even when he knew it could help him survive another day. “I kept thinking of the endless little problems of our miserable life” (81). He continues with a paragraph of examples that would translate in the modern day to: Is getting out of bed at noon problematic? Do I really have to work today? Should I be dieting? I miss my friends. I miss eating out. I just want this to be over. These kinds of thoughts cross my mind on a daily basis; complaining makes the time go faster. It is easy for someone in quarantine to forget their daily blessings, and focus on what they’ve lost, even if it is only temporary.
There is a silver lining – a way out of this mindset, a way out of suffering through our provisional existence. It is how Frankl survived the Holocaust, and it has given me a new mindset in the pandemic. “Suffering ceases to be suffering the moment that it finds meaning” (117). This is the entire view behind logotherapy. Finding purpose behind the pandemic transforms it from purgatory to a path with a final goal.
“Suffering ceases to be suffering the moment that it finds meaning”
While he was being starved, beaten, and worked to death, Frankl would imagine himself years in the future, in a lecture hall full of eager students, listening to him teach about the Holocaust as if he had never been a part of it. He envisioned publishing his manuscript on logotherapy with everything he’d learned about the human psyche in the camps. He most often dreamed of talking to his wife, who gave him the most hope of all. It takes a strong person to find meaning in suffering, but once the suffering becomes “clear and precise,” it ends (82).
Many prisoners couldn’t find a purpose in suffering, and they also lost a purpose in life. This lack of purpose is the key ingredient to hopelessness. As humans we are all are confronted with life’s biggest question: What is the meaning of life? It sounds big and bold – beyond human understanding. Frankl believes that it isn’t some abstract, philosophical concept, but “something very real and concrete, just as life’s tasks are very real and concrete…. The meaning of life [differs] from man to man, and from moment to moment” (85). Every day, our purpose can change. Or it can stay the same. It could be getting out of bed or being the friend that someone needs. It could be starting a novel or finishing one. In quarantine, I’ve discovered that my purpose is to appreciate all that I have. And once this is over, I will hug my friends tighter, laugh harder, thank workers, and never take another day for granted. Like Frankl, I will learn from my experiences and grow because of them.
“The meaning of life differs from man to man, and from moment to moment”
“He who has a ‘why’ to live can bear almost any ‘how’” (84). Frankl repeated Nietzsche’s statement internally while he was in the camps, always remembering to keep his “why” close. Earlier, I admitted that I often questioned why we deserved this. Frankl answers this indirectly. If a monkey is being tested on with a treatment that could cure cancer, can that monkey grasp the meaning of its suffering? Obviously not. It doesn’t have the intelligence necessary to understand the human world. Human suffering is the same. Who’s not to say that we aren’t the monkeys, incapable of understanding our present suffering because we lack the proper context (120-121)?
Anyone who is religious will understand this viewpoint. The context is heaven, and our earthly suffering will become clear once we meet God. This makes sense to someone who sees the world scientifically too. There are unreachable dimensions and medical miracles yet to be witnessed. It doesn’t take a particular worldview to grasp this – it simply manifests itself in the belief that humans are not all-knowing. There is meaning behind everything, tangible or distant. But to get through today, we must discover meaning for ourselves, in this precise moment.
