Long time since I’ve posted anything here.
Lately I’ve been reading Man’s Search for Meaning, by Auschwitz survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. It’s a harrowing yet uplifting and inspiring book. Roughly half of it is about his concentration camp experiences, and the other half is about the psychiatric philosophy and treatment method he developed and called “logotherapy.”
He believes that people are motivated not by a will to power or a will to pleasure, but by a will to meaning. Sometimes, when I’m reading the book, I think I’m reading something a Buddhist would write. Other times, not.
Anyway, here’s a quote I recently came across in the book, which is really sticking with me:
“Usually, to be sure, man considers only the stubble field of transitoriness and overlooks the full granaries of the past, wherein he had salvaged once and for all his deeds, his joys and also his sufferings. Nothing can be undone, and nothing can be done away with.”
I guess a Buddhist would say that all we have is the present moment — that the past is gone and the future is only a dream. Maybe. I found and still find that idea compelling, but I also like the idea of a vast storehouse of memories that each of us sets up and that never goes away.
Wordnado 