Man's Search For Meaning

By Victor Frankl
A lot of people have recommended this book to me, especially therapists and people who found it inspiring. It helped me discover my point of view.
In the first section of Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl, memoirs his experiences surviving the concentration camps: Auschwitz and Dachau. Victor Frankl, was a psychiatrist who wrote books about healing through finding meaning in life. He was taken to Auschwitz, clutching the manuscript of the book he was writing. It was hidden in the pocket of his jacket which was taken by the prison guards.
How was it that he survived when so many others did not? A big part of it was luck; the guards chose at random who would survive. He survived because he cared for others--he was he was a doctor who could help in the infirmary. He survived because he had a reason to live--he spent his time visualizing his wife, and thinking of the words to the book he was writing. Many of the prisoners became so despondent that they soon got sick and died. Only those who had hope for the future and fought for their lives survived. However, many of the survivors who hoped for the future found that when they returned home, the people that they hoped to see were dead and assimilation back into society was grueling.
In the second section of the book, Victor Frankl talks about his philosophy and his style of therapy called Logotherapy (therapy that centers around finding meaning in life). In difficult and even horrific (in the example of concentration camps) circumstances a person can survive if they can find meaning in the experience. If they die, their death is not senseless but becomes a meaningful martyrdom.
In some ways I disagree with Frankl's philosophy (which makes me feel guilty after all he has been through!) In Frankl's view--existentialism-- it doesn't matter what your life means, you can pick anything. There is no God and no Truth in existentialism, but believing in God is fine as long as it gives your life meaning. Its just like saying that there is nothing wrong with thinking you are Cinderella as long as it makes you happy.
I think existentialism grew out of the turbulence of the early twentieth century. When philosophers saw how people kill each other over totalitarian truth, they began to question if anyone really knows the truth. Maybe truth is variable and morals are relative. Maybe there is no truth at all so pick what makes you feel right (and does the least damage).
This book got me to think about what I believe. I believe there is absolute truth. It can be dangerous to believe in absolute truth because those who believe they have it at the expense of all others are known as fundamentalists, who blow up buildings. I think truth is an all-encompassing sphere. Different peoples have different parts of it. The more of the truth sphere you have seen, the greater good will you have.
Anyway, this book prompted me decide what I believe, so because of this book I wrote a This I Believe Essay, and sent it in to NPR. We'll see how that goes.