I’ve been reading Viktor Frankl‘s book about his experience of concentration camps, and then his conclusions about what helped him survive. Dr. Frankl was a psychiatrist. He said that Freud thought that what motivated human beings was pleasure, Adler thought it was power, but he himself said it was meaning. The book is called “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
Writing group on Monday, July 31
Viktor Frankl says that what is most important in people’s lives is not pleasure, not power, but meaning. That explains why so many people’s lives in our modern culture are empty and ultimately unsatisfying.
I want to look at my life and see where I find meaning. One thing for sure is my blog. It always feels good when I publish a piece. I tell my truth as best I can, and then I put it out there. I don’t really care if people read it, what’s important to me is to make it available. Though I was glad to find out that there are people reading it. Especially since I haven’t posted a reminder on facebook in a long time.
Mocha is important in my life. The times when I feel like I want to die I realize I wouldn’t feel good leaving her alone. Taking care of her, taking her for walks, is an important part of my life. I like getting her outdoors, I like watching her explore the world. Sometimes she doesn’t want to go where I want to go and we fight about it. I’ve been working on finding ways to have a conversation about it. Sometimes I let her do what she wants to, sometimes I lower my voice and say “Come!” and she obeys. I also like being in Nature. When I’m outside I do my best to be present to what is there, to the plants, to the weather, to the people and the buildings, to how my body feels. So my relationships with Mocha and with Nature are full of meaning for me.
The moon is important. I try to see it every day. Very frustrating with all the cloudy weather. The hardest time to see the moon is the waning cycle. I have to look in the morning, as early as possible. The hardest season to see the waning moon is summer because the waning moon is in the winter section of the ecliptic, the Zodiacal signs of Sagittarius and Capricorn, so it’s low in the sky and hard to find. This month I managed to see several crescents, the first quarter through thin clouds after the sun had set so it was bright enough to see, then a waxing gibbous once, and then one just short of the full moon. I hope to see the full moon tonight. The weather was better the last couple of weeks. Whole months have gone by when I haven’t seen the moon at all. That’s very frustrating. I really feel lost when I don’t see the moon. It’s like it lets me know that I’m home in the solar system which in some ways feels more home to me than the USA.
Where else do I find meaning? with my good friends, like the ones I’m doing this writing with. In fact this writing group is full of meaning for me. It’s a chance to explore deeper topics in my life, or just to do a free writing and see what comes up. Most of what I write in this group is meaningful and gets posted on my blog.
Frankl says that “meaning” is specific to the person. “What matters … is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.” (p101)
This is a great topic to be exploring. There are things I did in the past that have a lot of meaning: The Feminine of History is Mystery, Journey into Courage, Sacred Sites, Neskaya. They give me a reason to know that I have done good things with my life, not huge things, but things that at least have brought meaning to some people.
I did see the full moon last night!