Viktor Frankl exhorts us to find meaning in suffering
We fortunately have access to many of the lectures and talks given by Viktor Frankl after his horrific holocaust experience. Here's one in which he elaborates on how to find meaning in the face of suffering.
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about; Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing- I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony Of death and birth
cAN WAITING GIVE MEANING TO LIFE
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And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing-
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth
Previous comment is fronm East Coker by TS Eliot
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