Within one week I, on behalf of my daughter, have had offers of
- several books
- one juicer
- a special DVD called Crazy, Sexy Cancer
- home-made smoothies + recipes
- close to ten personal suggestions of naturopath/homeopath practitioners – including one in-person offer from a former student, a doctor who specializes in homeopathy, who lives in Mexico
- countless email
- home-made dinners
- cards and messages
- phone calls
- presents tucked in doorways
- free stand-by airline passage
- offers to take care of the cats
- hopes, prayers; good wishes; kind thoughts
- and only one, “I’m too tired,” which, in my experience, is remarkable. (Both the collections of offers and the “I’m too tired.” Mind you, the subtlety of this cruel, jealous woman has never been lost on me, and I have come to regard her the way one might regard, and ultimately flick away, an insect that has landed carelessly on the shoulder of one’s pretty sweater.)
I cannot help but return in my head, as I so often do, to Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, the umpteenth copy now sitting here on my desk, ready for delivery.
Here are some quotes from this most worthy book:
"Everything can be taken from a man but ...the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." p.104
"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." p.122
"What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment." p.171
"We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a value; and (3) by suffering." p.176
Frankl, Viktor E., Man's Search for Meaning, Washington Square Press, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1963.
It seems clear to me that countless people live their lives accordingly: that they choose their own paths to walk; that they do not flinch, but instead act; that they understand suffering and what it means to honour that suffering in ways that are humble, truthful and magnanimous.
I hope that I might be guided by the same principles, and in this way conduct my own life accordingly; that I might stop questioning and understand myself as the object, and subject, of life’s questioning.
