The Invention of Unchanging Human Nature: Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and Artificial Intelligence
I finally finished the book “Man’s search for meaning.” I can’t recall how many years it has been since I was first introduced to this book. The message goes somewhat like this:
“There is a book called Man’s Search for Meaning. You should read it, and you’ll like it.”
With no further information about the book other than that, I will enjoy it, the idea of reading it one day sits in the back of my conscious mechanism. Call it a gut feeling, intuition, or synchronicity—I took out this book for the first time after recently indulging in World War II movies and the Oppenheimer release.
I drew some lines along the way, and to be practical, I would like to share 20% of them with you. If you are interested in the other 80%, please contact me (please comment/DM/Email).
I also chose my favorite line at the end, though I hope you do not skip everything and jump to the end because you might miss out on what is more important to YOU.
credit: Isabella Wang
Book Highlights (1–10):
Several times in the course of the book, Frankl approvingly quotes the words of Nietzsche, “He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.”
The great task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life.
Frankle saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person, as Frankl held on to the image of his wife through the darkest days in Auschwitz), and in courage in difficult times.
Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.
Don’t aim at success.
Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.
I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge.
We who have come back, by the aid of many lucky chances or miracles—whatever one may choose to call them—we know: the best of us did not return.
The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living.
The camp inmate was frightened of making decisions and of taking any sort of initiative whatsoever. This was the result of a strong feeling that fate was one’s master, and that one must not try to influence it in any way, but instead let it take its own course.
credit: Isabella Wang
Book Highlights (11–20):
11. As soon as I had told him with finality that I had made up my mind to stay with my patients, the unhappy feeling left me. I did not know what the following days would bring, but I had gained an inward peace that I had never experienced before.
12. …man is no more than a product of many conditional and environmental factors…
13. Emotion, which is suffering, cease to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
14. But we limped on; we wanted to see the camp’s surroundings for the first time with the eyes of free men.
15. We had literally lost the ability to feel pleased and had to relearn it slowly.
16. …no one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them.
17. Logo is a Greek word which denotes “meaning.”
18. The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom.
19. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.
20. The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.
credit: Isabella Wang
Book Highlights (21–28):
21. Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality.
22. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast to be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.
23. For too long a time — for half a century, in fact — psychiatry tries to interpret the human mind merely as a mechanism, and consequently the therapy of mental disease merely in terms of a technique. I believe this dream has been dreamt out.
24. It is a character of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to “be happy.” But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.
25. …whereas the perception of meaning, as I see it, more specifically boils down to becoming aware of a possibility against the background of reality or, to express it in plain words, to becoming aware of what can be done about a given situation.
26. “George, you must realize that the world is a joke. There is no justice, everything is random. Only when you realize this will you understand how silly it is to take yourself seriously. There is no grand purpose in the universe. It just is…”
27. My interest does not lie in raising parrots that just rehash “their master’s voice,” but rather in passing the torch to “independent and inventive, innovative and creative spirits.”
28. So, let us be alert—alert in a twofold sense:
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of.
And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.
***
My favorite line from the entire book is:
“Live as if you were already living for the second time, and as if you had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to do now!”
I think this mindset transcends “living each day as if it were your last” in every way.
Thank you for reading, and your thoughts are always welcome and appreciated.