酷我-北美枫

[Champagne]

Saying Yes to Life in Spite of Everything

Logotherapy, a borderland between medicine and philosophy
Is an analysis of meaning, for meaning, and with meaning
A healing process through the will to meaning
And a Promethean optimism in the face of suffering, guilt, and death.
With an open attitude toward the God above God
Believing in human beings as value-bearers
Who learn ably from the past
We can act responsibly in the present
And plan hopefully for the future
If we pay more attention
To the noetic dimension of the human psyche.
_________________
I'm Champagne,
Bottled poetry with sparkling joy.

[[Champagne]]

Saying Yes to Life in Spite of Everything

Logotherapy, a borderland between medicine and philosophy
Is an analysis of meaning, for meaning, and with meaning
A healing process through the will to meaning
And a Promethean optimism in the face of suffering, guilt, and death.
With an open attitude toward the God above God
Believing in human beings as value-bearers
Who learn ably from the past
We can act responsibly in the present
And plan hopefully for the future
If we pay more attention
To the noetic dimension of the human psyche.
_________________
I'm Champagne,
Bottled poetry with sparkling joy.

[ericcoliu]

Glad to know that you’re interested in Logotherapy and the work of Victor Frankl.

His Man's Search for Meaning has turned me into a student of the Holocaust Literature, and I have become eager to find out from what resources a person can draw and still say YES to life in spite of everything.

Share with you two selected passages from the 1984 Edition, which help me a lot to learn about the inner strength that one can posses if he has a determined will to meaning:

Passage One: The salvation of man is through love and in love

"A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life l saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth--that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way--an honourable way--in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, 'The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”

Passage Two: This intensification of inner life helps one find a refuge from the emptiness, desolation and spiritual poverty of one’s existence

"This intensification of inner life helped the prisoner find a refuge from the emptiness, desolation and spiritual poverty of his existence, by letting him escape into the past. When given free rein, his imagination played with past events, often not important ones, but minor happenings and trifling things. His nostalgic memory glorified them and they assumed a strange character. Their world and their existence seemed very distant and the spirit reached out for them longingly: In my mind I took bus rides, unlocked the front door of my apartment, answered my telephone, switched on the electric lights. Our thoughts often centered on such details, and these memories could move one to tears.



"As the inner life of the prisoner tended to become more intense, he also experienced the beauty of art and nature as never before. Under their influence he sometimes even forgot his own frightful circumstances. If someone had seen our faces on the journey from Auschwitz to a Bavarian camp as we beheld the mountains of Salzburg with their summits glowing in the sunset, through the little barred windows of the prison carriage, he would never have believed that those were the faces of men who had given up all hope of life and liberty. Despite that factor--or maybe because of it--we were carried away by nature's beauty, which we had missed for so long.



"In camp too, a man might draw the attention of a comrade working next to him to a nice view of the setting sun shining through the tall trees of the Bavarian woods (as in the famous water color by Dürer), the same woods in which we had built an enormous, hidden munitions plant. One evening, when we were already resting on the floor of our hut, dead tired, soup bowls in hand, a fellow prisoner rushed in and asked us to run out to the assembly grounds and see the wonderful sunset. Standing outside we saw sinister clouds glowing in the west and the whole sky alive with clouds of ever-changing shapes and colors, from steel blue to blood red. The desolate grey mud huts provided a sharp contrast, while the puddles on the muddy ground reflected the glowing sky. Then, after minutes of moving silence, one prisoner said to another, 'How beautiful the world could be!'

The exclamation – How beautiful the world could be !– totally knocks me down, and it’s unbelievable to hear this excited utterance from a person living and working in a concentration camp.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

Glad to know that you’re interested in Logotherapy and the work of Victor Frankl.

His Man's Search for Meaning has turned me into a student of the Holocaust Literature, and I have become eager to find out from what resources a person can draw and still say YES to life in spite of everything.

Share with you two selected passages from the 1984 Edition, which help me a lot to learn about the inner strength that one can posses if he has a determined will to meaning:

Passage One: The salvation of man is through love and in love

"A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life l saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth--that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way--an honourable way--in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, 'The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”

Passage Two: This intensification of inner life helps one find a refuge from the emptiness, desolation and spiritual poverty of one’s existence

"This intensification of inner life helped the prisoner find a refuge from the emptiness, desolation and spiritual poverty of his existence, by letting him escape into the past. When given free rein, his imagination played with past events, often not important ones, but minor happenings and trifling things. His nostalgic memory glorified them and they assumed a strange character. Their world and their existence seemed very distant and the spirit reached out for them longingly: In my mind I took bus rides, unlocked the front door of my apartment, answered my telephone, switched on the electric lights. Our thoughts often centered on such details, and these memories could move one to tears.



"As the inner life of the prisoner tended to become more intense, he also experienced the beauty of art and nature as never before. Under their influence he sometimes even forgot his own frightful circumstances. If someone had seen our faces on the journey from Auschwitz to a Bavarian camp as we beheld the mountains of Salzburg with their summits glowing in the sunset, through the little barred windows of the prison carriage, he would never have believed that those were the faces of men who had given up all hope of life and liberty. Despite that factor--or maybe because of it--we were carried away by nature's beauty, which we had missed for so long.



"In camp too, a man might draw the attention of a comrade working next to him to a nice view of the setting sun shining through the tall trees of the Bavarian woods (as in the famous water color by Dürer), the same woods in which we had built an enormous, hidden munitions plant. One evening, when we were already resting on the floor of our hut, dead tired, soup bowls in hand, a fellow prisoner rushed in and asked us to run out to the assembly grounds and see the wonderful sunset. Standing outside we saw sinister clouds glowing in the west and the whole sky alive with clouds of ever-changing shapes and colors, from steel blue to blood red. The desolate grey mud huts provided a sharp contrast, while the puddles on the muddy ground reflected the glowing sky. Then, after minutes of moving silence, one prisoner said to another, 'How beautiful the world could be!'

The exclamation – How beautiful the world could be !– totally knocks me down, and it’s unbelievable to hear this excited utterance from a person living and working in a concentration camp.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[Lake]

Inspiring. Very positive attitude towards life.

工作着是美丽的
活着是美丽的

[[Lake]]

Inspiring. Very positive attitude towards life.

工作着是美丽的
活着是美丽的

[Champagne]

Hi! Lake & ericcoliu:

Thank you for your reading of my writing regarding Victor Frankl’s work.

[[Champagne]]

Hi! Lake & ericcoliu:

Thank you for your reading of my writing regarding Victor Frankl’s work.

[星子]

good to read this and have you all shared something.

I agree: The salvation of man is through love and in love

I also found the inner world could be very beautiful. We could be carried away by ourselves' inner world.

When I excise Yoga, I can freely imagine the nature's wonders and beauty.
I feel peaceful.
_________________

[[ANNA]]

good to read this and have you all shared something.

I agree: The salvation of man is through love and in love

I also found the inner world could be very beautiful. We could be carried away by ourselves' inner world.

When I excise Yoga, I can freely imagine the nature's wonders and beauty.
I feel peaceful.
_________________

[星子]

Hi Champagne

The description of the death of Frankl's father gives me one precious lesson: Look at the theorist first to see if he knows how to live.

what I see is he say no to Life? for his father's case. I am not to judge or try to offend...

just want to understand what you think.
_________________

[[ANNA]]

Hi Champagne

The description of the death of Frankl's father gives me one precious lesson: Look at the theorist first to see if he knows how to live.

what I see is he say no to Life? for his father's case. I am not to judge or try to offend...

just want to understand what you think.
_________________

[Champagne]

The description of the death of Frankl's father in his What Is Not in My Books –Memoirs published in 1995, two years before he died, is an antithesis to his life-long intellectual work: logotherapy that can be boiled down to one inspiring mantra, “Say Yes to Life in Spite of Everything.”

I think he knew that not every kind of life is worthy of being lived or of being fought for. Once lost the most important aspects of it that constitute the personhood of its owner, the life can be terminated with dignity by the will of its owner or of the trustee of its owner.

The Sea inside is an exalting film on the Right to Die with Dignity. It tells a real life story of Spaniard Ramón Sampedro, a quadriplegic for 28 years, have fought a 28-year campaign to win the right to end his life with dignity.

The description of the death of Frankl's father and the life story of Spaniard Ramón Sampedro stimulate me to re-think this logotheraputic mantra, “Say Yes to Life in Spite of Everything.”
_________________
I'm Champagne,
Bottled poetry with sparkling joy.

[[Champagne]]

The description of the death of Frankl's father in his What Is Not in My Books –Memoirs published in 1995, two years before he died, is an antithesis to his life-long intellectual work: logotherapy that can be boiled down to one inspiring mantra, “Say Yes to Life in Spite of Everything.”

I think he knew that not every kind of life is worthy of being lived or of being fought for. Once lost the most important aspects of it that constitute the personhood of its owner, the life can be terminated with dignity by the will of its owner or of the trustee of its owner.

The Sea inside is an exalting film on the Right to Die with Dignity. It tells a real life story of Spaniard Ramón Sampedro, a quadriplegic for 28 years, have fought a 28-year campaign to win the right to end his life with dignity.

The description of the death of Frankl's father and the life story of Spaniard Ramón Sampedro stimulate me to re-think this logotheraputic mantra, “Say Yes to Life in Spite of Everything.”
_________________
I'm Champagne,
Bottled poetry with sparkling joy.

[星子]

Yes. Now I fully understand it.

Thanks for the details.

Yesterday I just read a poem "Edges", depicts the death and its fulfillment. a little sad yet kind of attracting effect.

Anna
_________________

[[ANNA]]

Yes. Now I fully understand it.

Thanks for the details.

Yesterday I just read a poem "Edges", depicts the death and its fulfillment. a little sad yet kind of attracting effect.

Anna
_________________

[ericcoliu]

Share with you The Heart Asks Pleasure First by Emily Dickinson, whose own suffering prompted her to examine human predicaments with "narrow, probing, Eyes".

The heart asks pleasure first
And then, excuse from pain-
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

Share with you The Heart Asks Pleasure First by Emily Dickinson, whose own suffering prompted her to examine human predicaments with "narrow, probing, Eyes".

The heart asks pleasure first
And then, excuse from pain-
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[anna]

anodyne 镇痛的

predicaments 苦[险]境

Today I read another good one to share with you too.

Desert Places
by: Robert Frost

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

anodyne 镇痛的

predicaments 苦[险]境

Today I read another good one to share with you too.

Desert Places
by: Robert Frost

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com