Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Two sources ~ on TWOsday

Man's Search for Meaning ~ by Viktor E. Frankl, 1959, psychology

As we were leaving a book fair's Not for Profit Day*** event a couple of weeks ago, I noticed an apparently unread paperback copy of this book and picked it up.  It's old.  I just realized that a 1959 book is now 59 years old.  (Yes, I notice odd things like that.)  However, I've read it and know it's a wonderful book.  Since nobody chose to take it for their non-profit collection, I added it to the books in my cart and brought it home with me.  I was able to find the above quote in the 1984 edition I have here, but it's on page 86 (notice that the one above is on page 75).  After not thinking about this book in decades, here it appears TWICE ... (1) unclaimed after a huge book fair, and (2) posted on Facebook by someone who obviously considers this an important message:
"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.  They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing:  the last of the human freedoms ― to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way" (p. 86).
As I searched for this quote in my "new" old book, I stumbled across another sentence I want to quote:
"The truth ― that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire" (p. 57).
I have found many quotes by and about Viktor Frankl.  This one seems important.


*** Not for Profit Day was held on May 7th, at the end of the 2018 Greater St. Louis Book Fair, which "raises funds to promote education and literacy for underserved individuals in the St. Louis metropolitan area."  Nonprofits were invited to send people to select ~ at no charge ~ as many books as desired from those remaining after the Fair closed.  Donna and Randi and I, the designated attendees from the Crown Center, carefully picked out about 200 books to add to our little library.

*** One last thing ... the word "man" was used to mean "people" in general, back in the olden days of the 1950s.  So don't hold the word against Frankl as you ponder what he thought about humankind's search for meaning.

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