Connections to "Man's Search for Meaning"

I'm up in Edmonton right now at an Emerge conference. As I drove up here on Sunday afternoon, I popped in the audio book of Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. I had been thinking of adding it to my ELA 30-1 courseload, and I had hoped to read and plan that over the summer, but it just didn't happen. I remember reading it as a teenager when my dad gave it to me (we still swap good reading finds), but I didn't remember it well.

As I drove and listened, I was intrigued by the way I kept making connections with the class. He writes a few times about different aspects of personality or morality being snuffed out when people are in survival situations. They can, to some extent, be wiped out as a personality and a human without actually dying...although his contention is that once we've lost that 'meaning' in our lives, we are essentially defeated.

It began to dawn on me how creativity is not simply an endeavor. While listening, I started to feel that it was, for many intensive purposes, a right - an elemental part of what makes us human. And given the Nazi's overall intent in the Holocaust (aside from genocide itself) of dehumanization, this idea is almost proven in Frankl's work. Prisoners were stripped of any creative tools, creative property (Frankl himself had his original manuscript taken), and even creative ability (as best that could be taken...they were stripped of spirit). Frankl writes of people, including himself, who found creative purpose. He began rewriting his work on tiny scraps, using other unusual media. He admits that this work was what kept him alive, and he saw this hold true for others. There was hope for those that found a way to create something and a way to find beauty in their surroundings because that was one way of formulating meaning.

In the most memorable passage (that I listened to a couple of times because I LOVED it), he describes how interesting it was that some prisoners stood, admired, and enjoyed a beautiful sunset, even while it was framed by the juxtaposing barracks of the camp.

I wish I could remember some of the other connections that came to mind as I drove. If I had the time, I'd skim through the book, but that's just not happening right now. Maybe someday I'll reread with the particular intent of analyzing the role of creativity.