Embracing Hope, page 4
“That is heroism,” you may say, “and how can we demand heroism?” No one can demand heroism or even ask for it from anyone but themselves. But what we can very well do is refer to these examples, to these role models that show us how this suffering can be borne. And now, let me choose just one of these examples to show you: a couple of years ago, someone sent me an illustrated newspaper article. This young man—Jerry Long is his name—had read a book of mine, Man’s Search for Meaning, and he wanted to tell me the following.
At 17 years of age, he had a diving accident and broke his neck. Since then, he has been at home, paralyzed from the head down, completely paralyzed. He can only move his head. He can type with a small wooden stick clamped between his teeth. With a particular movement that he can still make, by jerking his left shoulder, he can activate a telecommunications system that connects him with the university in Texas, which is only a couple of miles away but which he cannot attend in person. He actively takes part in seminars, gives presentations, submits exam papers and studies psychology. And all because, as he writes, with his stick between his teeth, he can confirm what I assert in my book about finding meaning, even in suffering, and he would like to help other people. This is why he is studying psychology, and he is convinced that all the suffering that he is going through will ultimately serve to make him a better psychological counsellor.
And in another letter he wrote, word for word: “I view my life as abundant with meaning and purpose.” This is someone who has the face of a handsome young man—he is now 24 years old—but from there consists only of a skeleton that hangs from his head. The man weighs only about 30 kilos. Unbelievable. I have never seen anything like that in my life or in the many decades of my professional practice . . . and he is absolutely brimming with spirit!
A year ago, I met Jerry Long in person when he gave a lecture about his life at the University of Regensburg for the Third World Congress of Logotherapy. He gave his lecture the title “The Defiant Power of the Human Spirit”—it’s a term I coined but that I seldom use because it sounds so emotional—but it’s the reality! He shows, he lives the defiant power of the human spirit.
And in the latest letter he wrote to me, he says that he has already started his counselling. At various hospitals in Texas, he counsels seriously ill or dying people. And at the end, he says proudly that he has had notable successes. And in the very last sentence of his letter, he is not proud but humble, as he writes: “Accomplishments are not to be rested upon, but built upon.”
That’s Jerry Long.
Ladies and gentlemen, you will now ask, “So, in a word, Mr. Frankl, you imagine that suffering has meaning and that we can’t actually fulfil a meaning in life if we don’t suffer.” Nothing of the sort—I never said that! That would be masochism. Heroism would only be the case if the suffering were absolutely necessary. As long as I can remove the source of the suffering, I must do it. If it is a carcinoma and it is still operable, I must have the operation. If it is a psychological process such as a psychosis or neurosis, then it must be treated with targeted medication or with psychotherapy, where that is possible and necessary. And if the suffering has a sociological cause, a political dilemma, then we must take political action in some permissible form. In any case, as long as we can and as soon as we can, we must remove the cause of the suffering.
What I am saying is not that suffering is necessary to find meaning and to fulfil meaning, but what I am saying once and for all is that fulfilling meaning is also possible where we are confronted with a state of suffering, albeit only when this suffering cannot be actively removed in any other way. In other words, the priority is to change the situation, to actively intervene; but, where this is not possible, the superiority (i.e., the ethical superiority within the value hierarchy) shifts to the possibility of a person seeing an opportunity for meaning and fulfilling it, in spite of suffering and precisely in the midst of this suffering. Life is potentially meaningful, in extremis and in ultimis, in the severest states of suffering, in the bleakest conditions and, finally, even until just before death.
Before I give you a specific example of this, I want to stress that these are not things that we are making up or that we have once found as an isolated case. These are things that have been precisely empirically proven in tests—for example, that the ability to find meaning, to recognize opportunities for meaning, is more pronounced in people who are close to death or who are in chronic situations of suffering, than in the average person. So, the ability to realize, “Wait, something could happen here. I could somehow, and maybe only through my attitude, prove what I am capable of, what human beings are actually capable of,” this ability, in fact, increases. The sensitivity to such possibilities increases with age, in severe states of suffering and especially before death, whose approach one is then aware of.
I would like to illustrate this with a letter I received decades ago. This is a letter from a bookkeeper who wrote to me shortly before her death from severe tuberculosis. “When has my life been richer? At the time when I was terribly useful as a bookkeeper and had so many duties I had no time for myself? Or in these last few years of intellectual engagement with a thousand problems? Even the struggle to overcome my fear of death that has tormented, hounded, and pursued me to an unimaginable extent, even this struggle seems to me to have been more worthwhile than a dozen balance sheets, no matter how fine.”
That is a true value hierarchy.
And perhaps I can read you some dialogue that we recorded of a patient who was, I think, 81 years old, had a metastasized carcinoma and knew that she would soon die. The following conversation took place in the lecture hall at the General Policlinic in Vienna.
FRANKL: What do you think of your long life when you look back on it today? Was it a good life?
PATIENT: Oh yes, Professor, I must say, it was a good life. My life really was good, and I must thank God for all that he gave me. I went to the theatre; I went to concerts and so forth. You see, I worked as a maid for a family in Prague for many years and they sometimes took me along to concerts. And you see, I am grateful for all those wonderful things. . . .
FRANKL: You speak of such lovely experiences. But that is all going to come to an end now, is it not?
PATIENT: (Pensively) Yes, yes, this will all come to an end.
FRANKL: How does that feel? Please describe it to me. Do you think that when this happens, all the wonderful things you have experienced will be removed from the world, will be obliterated?
PATIENT: (More pensively) These wonderful things I experienced . . .
FRANKL: Tell me, can anyone undo the happiness, that, as you say, you have experienced? Can anyone extinguish it?
PATIENT: You are right, Professor, no one can undo it.
FRANKL: Or can anyone erase the kindness that you have encountered in your life?
PATIENT: (More alert) No, no one!
FRANKL: And no one can erase what you have achieved and what you have gained.
PATIENT: You are right, no one can take that away.
FRANKL: Or can anyone take away what you have boldly and bravely endured? Can anyone remove all of that from the past, from the past into which you have rescued it, harvested it, and preserved it?
Now the patient is moved to tears and says: “No, no one can do that. No one.” After a while she says, “It’s true, I have suffered a lot. But I have also tried to absorb the blows that life has dealt me. Do you understand, Professor? I believe that suffering is a punishment, for I believe in God.”
FRANKL: But can’t suffering also be a test? Could it be that perhaps God wanted to see how you would bear the suffering? And in the end, maybe he had to admit: “Yes, she has borne it bravely.” And now tell me, what do you think, can anyone undo such achievements?
PATIENT: No, no one can.
FRANKL: They remain, don’t they?
PATIENT: Certainly, they remain.
FRANKL: You see, you haven’t just achieved all sorts of things in your life, you have also made the best of your life and your suffering. And because of that, you have become a role model for our patients in this department. I congratulate your fellow patients on the fact that they can take you as their example.
And in that moment, something happened that had never happened in any of my lectures before. All the students, and there were almost 200 of them, broke into spontaneous applause. “Look, this applause is for you, for your life, which was a single great achievement. You can be proud of your life. And how many people can really be proud of their lives? All I can say is, your life is a monument—a memorial that no one can ever erase from the world.”
The old woman slowly made her way out of the lecture hall. She died a week later. She died like Job, full of days. And in the last week of her life, she was no longer depressed. On the contrary, she was proud. Apparently, our conversation had shown her that even her own life had a meaning right up until the end. Before, the old woman was depressed, weighed down by the feeling that she had led a useless life.
Her last words, as entered verbatim in her case history by the attending doctor, were as follows: “My life is a monument, that’s what the professor said in front of all the students in the big lecture hall. So my life was not in vain.”
You can’t make up these things. Hearing these stories, you can only bow down in awe before such people and what they live through.
And now there is one last question: What happens when, for example, someone else dies and the transience of another human existence is at stake and at issue? Well, a famous urologist in the US, who led a World Congress in Montreal about psychology in the final stages of life, therefore in people who are dying, once wrote: “The end of life is always a time of unparalleled potential for personal and interpersonal growth for the patient and his family.” That’s true. They can experience inner growth from the suffering that is inflicted on them by the experience of a loved one dying or who has already died.
The following story from one of my books may confirm that. People keep coming to me to say how much this story helped them when they found themselves in a similar situation. This is the story of an elderly doctor, this old GP, who came to me because he could not get over the death of his wife, whom he loved more than anything. And he said to me: “I know, you cannot help me either. Tranquilizers? I can prescribe them myself. I wanted to talk to you.”
What could I say to him? I simply asked him, “Tell me, what would have happened if you had died first instead of your wife?” And he said, “It would have been terrible for my poor wife, how she would have suffered!” And so, I had no choice but to say, “You see, my dear Doctor, your wife has been spared this suffering. But you will admit that it is you who have spared her, because you must take this suffering upon yourself.”
In that moment, there was a Copernican revolution. All at once, this man saw in his suffering, in his sorrow, the meaning of the sacrifice that he owed his wife. He would rather outlive her and grieve for her than the other way around.
You see, this is paradigmatic, a pure improvisation, a Socratic dialogue, if you like. But others can do this too. I have in front of me a report from Dr. Elisabeth Lukas. She is a logotherapist who runs a large therapy center in Munich and who wrote the following in one of her lectures, and later in a book.*
A Swiss couple came specially to see me in Munich. They had already been to six Swiss psychiatrists without success. A year ago, the couple had lost their only son (and heir to their farm) in a car accident. Since then, the husband had declined into a state of complete passivity, let the farm go to rack and ruin, talked to no one and occasionally only remarked that everything was pointless now anyway, and he may as well blow his brains out. The husband sat there stony-faced and unresponsive at my table.
Dr. Lukas knew that nothing would get through to him except one thing. So, she asked him, “Tell me, if there was something you could still do for your son, would you be prepared to do it?” The man looked up and nodded. “I would do anything for him.”
“There is something,” continued Dr. Lukas, “that no one else but you can do for him. You see, until now, the death of your son has brought only unhappiness. You are sick with pain, the farm is run down, your wife is in despair. All the good that your son wanted to achieve in life has been halted by his death, unless something good can come from his death. Something that can make his life and death meaningful, retrospectively meaningful. But he is relying on the fact that someone else will be able to carry this good work forward for him—his father, for example.”
“The man’s eyes filled with tears,” wrote Dr. Lukas. “How can anything good come from his death?” he whispered. But he had to find the answer to that for himself. Dr. Lukas could only point him in the right direction, and said, “Let us imagine that you cultivate your land again and open your house to hikers or those in need. You will be able to tell everyone who asks, amazed, where your compassion comes from: ‘This is in memory of my son. He passed away at a young age, but I want people to remember him with joy and gratitude.’”
At these words from Dr. Lukas, for the first time in a year, the man buried his head in his hands and cried bitterly for half an hour. Then he stood up and helped his wife with her coat. “Let’s go home,” he said to her. “We have neglected a lot of things.”
This man was given back to life. That’s the story of a logotherapy consultation, a unique session, a unique conversation between Dr. Elisabeth Lukas and this father.
And now, to come back to transience, perhaps you will say, “We live in a society in which usefulness is in demand, not the meaning of life, not the value of life.” I have tried to show you that the meaning of life is, as far as possible, unconditional—right down to the last breath. I would now like to demonstrate that the value of a human being is just as unconditional (this runs in parallel). The value of a human being is unconditional insofar as it is not dependent on the usefulness that someone may have or may no longer have, but there is dignity there—this unconditional value of a human being. This dignity is not based on the person’s present usefulness in the social sense, in the functional sense, but is based on the past values that he has created, that he has brought into the world, that he has actualized. And this dignity remains with him right until his very last breath; it is indestructible, and no one can take it away. Of course, this is difficult for us to understand today, in a society that is performance-oriented and which, accordingly, also worships youth—it’s hard to grasp. Such people tend to regard with disdain an old man who is unable to function, who may no longer be useful, which, of course, has tremendous psycho-hygienic dangers. Just imagine that such a person grows old himself, if he is lucky. Well, he’s at the bottom of the heap, crushed by his feelings of inferiority, because he’s saying to himself, “I’m good for nothing, how can my life still be meaningful?” He is potentially suicidal because he has also lost his self-esteem.
But in reality, such people only have their own inconsistency, their personal inconsistency, to thank if they are not advocating euthanasia measures in the sense Hitler applied. For in this sense, all senile, all mentally deficient, all demented and also all sterile people would have to be exterminated because their lives would be worthless according to this value hierarchy. And, ladies and gentlemen, I know all about euthanasia! I spent enough time putting my neck on the line to sabotage Herr Hitler’s euthanasia program, together with Professor Otto Pötzl, the National Socialist Party candidate, who made common cause with me there. Together, we succeeded in sabotaging euthanasia in hundreds of cases. However, people who think like that, who do not recognize dignity as an absolute, unconditional human value but only recognize usefulness, usefulness for a society that worships false gods—these people are at risk not only in their future when they grow old themselves, but also in the present, because they would actually have to advocate euthanasia.
An old person does not even need pity. Young people should actually be envious of old people! Why? For the simple reason that the young person will say that he has opportunities in the future—“Thank you very much,” says the old person, “but I don’t have opportunities; I have realities, and these don’t exist in some questionable future, but in my lived past. And no one can rob me of that.”
On that note, we come back to our starting point. An old person who thinks like this knows what’s important. He knows that the meaning of life is potentially an unconditional one, and the worth of a human being is also potentially unconditional. Such a person is like a man who stands in front of his calendar on the wall. There are people who tear a page from the calendar each day and wistfully watch as the calendar gets thinner and thinner from day to day as, with every day, their life slips by.
But the other man I have in mind resembles a different type of person, who every day tears off a page from the calendar, turns it over and makes notes on the back, diary notes—what he did that day, what he experienced, what he created on that day, what he may have bravely endured on that day. And, proudly, he puts those notes aside—just like an old man, just like I am doing now—and I thank you for your attention.
* Transcribed and edited by Franz Vesely-Frankl, April 2022. Courtesy of the Viktor Frankl Archive.
* The German, “Nichts ist umsonst, was du erstritten, was du geliebt, was du erlitten,” is a paraphrase of lyrics from Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2.
* American neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing (1869–1939), who is regarded as the father of modern neurological surgery.
* Luis Trenker Trail in Tyrol, Austria, named after the author, mountaineer, director, and actor (1892–1990).
