Progression

From the brilliant "Outsider" to the drawn-out and dreary "Nauseau", I naturally progress to Viktor Frankl's "Man's search for Meaning".

Now for a mere 11 bucks, I have laid my hands on a book which makes me go "wow!" continuously. I mean, it is truly fresh to see a psychological approach based on a philosophy which is by no means baseless. Who can doubt the cauldron of extreme conditions that produced it.

Now there is really too much to say about this book. So I'll just draw out some snippets.

"There is nothing in the world that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life. There is much wisdom in the words of Nitezsche: "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.""

"For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefor, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment."

"In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life , he can only respond by being responsible."

"Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!"

"What is demanded of man is not, to endure the meaningless of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms. LOGOS is deeper than logic."

"To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions, but freedom to take a stand towards the conditions."