Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl
This book is similar to Night by Elie Wiesel on its face, that is, because they are both memoirs about concentration camps. However, Frankl writes about man’s need for hope—not in a Hallmark way—instead, that you literally need it to survive. Having hope meant living for some men in a situation that should have meant death.
Frankl tells the story of a man who had a “prophecy” that the war was going to end on March 13th. When it didn’t happen, he died. Frankl writes “The latin word ‘finis’ has two meanings: the end or the finish, and a goal to reach. A man who could not see the end of his ‘provisional existence’ was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. He ceased living for the future, in contrast to a man in normal life. Therefore the whole structure of his inner life changed; signs of decay set in…”
Frankl doesn’t just tell a story about his time in the camp, he applies it to human beings in general and discusses things that you and I do understand and have felt. If you have ever experienced existential frustration, or struggled with the meaning of life, suffering, or love, read this book. If you have not struggled with any of that, I probably do not want to know you.
It is hard to imagine a worse hell on earth than what Frankl experienced. The observation that hope literally kept some alive, even when their bodies deteriorated and wasted away from starvation, tells us what we should striving for in this thing called life.