Nietzsche: “He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.” He.
In the past, nothing is irretrievably lost but everything irrevocably stored.
Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions. Our.
In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that 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.
Apart from that strange kind of humor, another sensation seized us: curiosity.
Let us consider, for instance, “Sunday neurosis,” that kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of content in their lives when the rush of the busy week is over and the void within themselves becomes manifest. Not a few cases of suicide can be traced back to this existential vacuum.
And what about man? Are you sure that the human world is a terminal point in the evolution of the cosmos?
It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future – sub specie aeternitatis. And this is his salvation in the most.
There was neither time nor desire to consider moral or ethical issues. Every man was controlled by one thought only: to keep himself alive for the family waiting for him at home, and to save his friends. With no hesitation, therefore, he would arrange for another prisoner, another “number,” to take his place in the transport.
As soon as the patient stops fighting his obsessions and instead tries to ridicule them by dealing with them in an ironic way – by applying paradoxical intention – the vicious circle is cut, the symptom diminishes and finally atrophies.
If it were avoidable, however, the meaningful thing to do would be to remove its cause, be it psychological, biological or political. To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.
That is why existential frustration often eventuates in sexual compensation. We can observe in such cases that the sexual libido becomes rampant in the existential vacuum.
The fear of sleeplessness12 results in a hyper-intention to fall asleep, which, in turn, incapacitates the patient to do so. To overcome this particular fear, I usually advise the patient not to try to sleep but rather to try to do just the opposite, that is, to stay awake as long as possible.
Though it may afford momentary psychological relief, it is an illusion which physiologically, surely, must not be without danger.
He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how,” could be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic.
The neurotic who learns to laugh at himself may be on the way to self-management, perhaps to cure.
As we said before, any attempt to restore a man’s inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some future goal.
We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed.
It was in the nature of this sacrifice that it should appear to be pointless in the normal world, the world of material success.