The Curious Cat is a journey where I aim to reconnect with my inner-child and explore my curiosity. I pinpoint themes & topics I’ve been interested in recently, ask myself questions about them and then write about them. I hope you find value within this issue and have a fantastic day doing what you love.
I have decided to start writing book reviews. Both for myself and for you. Please do message me if you have different interpretations or ideas about the book.
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
📖 The Book in 3 Sentences
An autobiography of Viktor Frankl - a psychotherapist who survived over 1000 days as a prisoner of war in nazi-labour camps.
A case study and application of Viktor’s ‘logotherapy’ theory built on the belief that the search for meaning (even amidst misery) can constitute a potential solution to human suffering.
“Those who have a 'why', can bear with almost any 'how'.”
🍀 How the Book Changed Me
This is one of the books that most helped my ability to be appreciative and strong willed.
It made me understand the horrors of the holocaust like nothing else I’ve ever consumed; and be more appreciative of what I have
No matter the circumstances, I will always hold one freedom which no one can take away from me: the freedom to perceive things however I want to perceive them
Introduced me to the potential of logotherapy and physcotherapy
✍️ My Favourite Quotes
“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.”
“Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. 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. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”
“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”
“Man is that being who invented the gas chambers at Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.” This is Frankl saying ‘man is capable of evil; but no man must be evil. Every human has the capacity to change his behaviour and attitude in every possible situation.’
🔍 Who Should Read It?
I think this should be required reading for everyone in the world. Especially the privilleged world. It is not a long book; or a particularly hard read. But it is humbling and forces the reader to self-reflect. No waffle. Every line is purposeful.
📒 Summary + Notes
Frankl was a psychologist in Vienna and because he was Jewish, he, his family and his parents were arrested by the Nazi party. Then transferred to Auschwitz where they were all killed…except Viktor.
The core of Frankl’s philosophy is that a man’s deepest desire is to find meaning in his life, and if he/she can find that meaning, they can survive anything. Meaning can be found by creating work, loving someone, or adopting a modified attitude toward inevitable suffering.
Logotherapy is used today for a variety of purposes, including addiction, pain and guilt, anxiety, grief, and depression.
MSFM was first translated into English in 1959
Frankl found meaning in his experiences in the concentration camp by deciding that he was going to use his suffering as an opportunity to make himself a better person (by helping others + improving as a person). Shrunk his entire reality into micro-slices so he could find rewards, beauty and reasons to stay alive. Finding dopamine rewards in the cages they were trapped within. Ultimately achieving ‘meaning’ in a hell-like environment where pleasures were seemingly impossible.
3 ways to find meaning in life: through work (Viktor intended to publish logotherapy if he ever left captivity), through love (his wife + love for life kept him going), and through suffering (an opportunity to focus on the good and find purpose).
3 primary techniques used in logotherapy include:
(1) Dereflection - Very easy to get stuck in a pit of misery and self-pity. Frankl urges us to defer our attention from internal to external, to others. If one is struggling financially, rather than thinking how broke they are, a logotherapist would think “who am I helping/providing for?”
(2) Paradoxical intention - Do what you are afraid of until it is normalised. One may wish for the very thing one is afraid of, in order to remove fear from one’s intention.
(3) Socratic dialogue - A method of self-discovery to demonstrate to the patient that the solution to the patient’s problem is actually within him or her.