From "Man's Search For Meaning" part I
In psychiatry there is a 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.
I think it was Lessing who said, "There are things that must cause you to lose your reason, or you have none to lose." An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior. Even we psychiatrists expect the reactions of a man to an abnormal situation... to be abnormal in proportion to the degree of his normality.
Apathy, the blunting of the emotions and the feeling that one could not care anymore.. eventually made him insensitive to daily and hourly beatings. By means of this insensibility the prisoner soon surrounded himself with a very necessary protective shell... Apathy was a necessary mechanism of self-defense. Reality dimmed...
.. the mental anguish caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all.
Though it [daydreaming about food for the starving prisoner] may afford momentary psychological relief, it is an illusion which psychologically, surely, must not be without danger.
I was struggling to find the reason for my sufferings.
A man's suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is completely relative.
The way in which man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails.. gives him ample opportunity-- even under the most difficult circumstances-- to add a deeper meaning to his life. He may remain brave, dignified, and unselfish... man is confronted with fate, with the chance of achieving something through his own suffering.
The Latin word finis has two meanings:the end or the finish, and a goal to reach. A man who could not see the end of his "provisional existence" was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. He ceased living for the future, in contrast to a man in normal life. Therefore the whole structure of his life changed; signs of decay set in which we know from other areas of life. The unemployed worker, for example is in a similar position. His existence has become provisional and to a certain sense he cannot live for a future or aim at a goal.
In camp a day lasted longer than a week.
It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future.. and this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.
Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
Nietzsche's words: "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how."
What we had gone through could still be an asset to us in the future.. Nietzsche: That which does not kill me, makes me stronger."
What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you. Not only our experience, but all we have done, whatever great thoughts we may have had, and all we have suffered, all this is not lost, though it is past, we have brought it into being.
"I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and He answered me in the freedom of space."
A man who for years had thought he had reached the absolute limit of all possible suffering now found that suffering has no limits, and that he could suffer still more, and still more intensely.
As the day of his liberation eventually came, when everything seemed to him like a beautiful dream, so also the day came when all his camp experiences seem to him nothing but a nightmare.
I think it was Lessing who said, "There are things that must cause you to lose your reason, or you have none to lose." An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior. Even we psychiatrists expect the reactions of a man to an abnormal situation... to be abnormal in proportion to the degree of his normality.
Apathy, the blunting of the emotions and the feeling that one could not care anymore.. eventually made him insensitive to daily and hourly beatings. By means of this insensibility the prisoner soon surrounded himself with a very necessary protective shell... Apathy was a necessary mechanism of self-defense. Reality dimmed...
.. the mental anguish caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all.
Though it [daydreaming about food for the starving prisoner] may afford momentary psychological relief, it is an illusion which psychologically, surely, must not be without danger.
I was struggling to find the reason for my sufferings.
A man's suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is completely relative.
The way in which man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails.. gives him ample opportunity-- even under the most difficult circumstances-- to add a deeper meaning to his life. He may remain brave, dignified, and unselfish... man is confronted with fate, with the chance of achieving something through his own suffering.
The Latin word finis has two meanings:the end or the finish, and a goal to reach. A man who could not see the end of his "provisional existence" was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. He ceased living for the future, in contrast to a man in normal life. Therefore the whole structure of his life changed; signs of decay set in which we know from other areas of life. The unemployed worker, for example is in a similar position. His existence has become provisional and to a certain sense he cannot live for a future or aim at a goal.
In camp a day lasted longer than a week.
It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future.. and this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.
Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
Nietzsche's words: "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how."
What we had gone through could still be an asset to us in the future.. Nietzsche: That which does not kill me, makes me stronger."
What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you. Not only our experience, but all we have done, whatever great thoughts we may have had, and all we have suffered, all this is not lost, though it is past, we have brought it into being.
"I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and He answered me in the freedom of space."
A man who for years had thought he had reached the absolute limit of all possible suffering now found that suffering has no limits, and that he could suffer still more, and still more intensely.
As the day of his liberation eventually came, when everything seemed to him like a beautiful dream, so also the day came when all his camp experiences seem to him nothing but a nightmare.
posted by marcelle at
2:43 PM
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