Man’s search for Meaning – Victor E Frankl

If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.

There is a Tamil movie, ‘Yuddham Sei’ directed by Misskin. The final scene of this movie ends with JK giving a book to a boy. The title of that book is ‘Man’s search for Meaning’

This is a book I’ve been wanting to read for a long time. Yet, I had no notion that this book was about the Holocaust. I’ve read a couple of World War II novels as well as a few books about concentration camps. The first few pages startled me because I had no idea they dealt with such topics.

Viktor Frankl chronicled his experiences in his 1946 book Man’s Search for Meaning. During World War II, he was a prisoner at Auschwitz concentration camp. He goes on to discuss his psychotherapy strategy. He entailed defining a positive purpose in life and then immersing himself in that goal. According to Frankl, a prisoner’s outlook on the future had an impact on his longevity. The goal of the book is to answer the question,

“How did ordinary living in a concentration camp reflects on the typical prisoner’s mind?”

Part One is Frankl’s study of his experiences in concentration camps. Part 2 introduces his thoughts about the meaning and his logotherapy theory.

Why did Mysskin bring this book into the movie?

Cheran gives the book to the youngster who has lost everything he has ever known. JK gave a Nazi concentration camp survivor account as a leaving gift. JK has chosen to accept the Court’s punishment. To achieve a wider goal of releasing an adolescent who has lost his entire family. The goal was to inspire him to find meaning in his life. Giving a copy of Victor Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ to someone who has gone through a similar ordeal was a lovely touch in the last moments. As Frankl put it – “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”.