Viktor Frankl and Having Choices

A young friend, today, reminded me of an author I have not considered in way too long. Viktor Frankl saved my life. The circumstances were long ago and far away and of not much consequence, anymore. But save my life, he did. And he probably deserves more frequent remembrance.

I do not often have difficulty expressing my thoughts about matters of deep meaning to me, but, it seems, I struggle here. I tried to assemble these thoughts into some sort of meaningful review that would, perhaps, inspire someone else to think thoughts differently. But still I struggle.

I will think on that more. Until then, I will share those particular words that were the most meaningful to me at the time, so many years ago, when I was someone else, but, in some ways, more me than I am now.

(Does it ever seem to anyone else that we are devolving instead of evolving? That we are born closer to who we are meant to be and we live our lives struggling to stay connected to that self, only to find the more we struggle the further away we get? It's sort of like drowning, in a way. If we could but trust that we were once fish, how easy it would be to swim. If we could cease the struggle ...)

The Words of Viktor Frankl

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.

More of his words can be found online. A life-changing experience,possibly, can be found in his book, Man's Search for Meaning.

And if I can find some sense of my thoughts, one day, I will write a more worthy review.

How come ...

I began my writing this evening with a small frozen daiquiri from a drive-through window. We have those here, in southern Louisiana. I actually never had to leave my car. I drove right up to the window on the side of the bar and told the girl at the window, whom I have known since before she was out of diapers, that I wanted a Margarita flavored frozen daiquiri. This was served to me in a styrofoam cup with a straw for convenience. A fast-food drunk on the road. I don't get it either. The whole business seems to me to be a recipe for disaster, but I am responsible enough not to take even one sip until I am back at home, out of my car, and comfortably ensconced for the night.

And I always try to sip slowly, as I imagine one would have sipped a mint julep out on the veranda of an overly large plantation home. Thinking about the plantation home necessarily creates images of slavery and abuse, spoiling the taste of the julep and breaking me unpleasantly free of reverie. As I strive for a more appropriate image, comes the pondering.

... after I have had just the right amount of an alcoholic beverage, words I have been searching for all day, all week, maybe for months, begin to tumble and roll and literally drop from my fingers. Forcing me to struggle to keep them from spilling all over the floor and oozing out the door and across the patio and plunging into the bayou, streaming inexorably to the ocean, exposing every thought I ever had not only to the gator and that awkward looking bird looking back at me from the water's edge but to every living thing on this earth.

How come?

How come words can't find me when I am already sitting at the keyboard, coffee cup comfortably close by, when I'm feeling lazy and at ease with myself and the world? How they can't line up, obediently, and stand there without moving until I can get them in their proper places, with time to check the hemlines, and the dirt behind the ears, and make the necessary adjustments?

I want to write sort of slow and southern with a little bit of sassy. I tend to believe more words are better than less - as long as there aren't too many more. Just enough to temper one's progress across and down the page, allowing time to savor the journey and encouraging the reader to sit back, settle in, stay awhile.

How come my words can't fall like that? Why does it always seem as if there were a pendulum swinging relentlessly between rush and struggle and absolute dearth of ideas? What do I do when my glass is empty?

Thinking Too Much

I have friends who say I think too much. Possibly, they are correct. For instance, when typing the title for this blog I debated on whether or not the word "too" should be capitalized. As a fledgling editor, that is probably something I should know, and I could easily look it up in my Chicago Style Manual or any of a number of places online.

But ... I don't and I didn't.

I did think about it.

I am sitting on the patio, cup of coffee at hand and thinking about not thinking.


It is in moments like these that I feel just a twinge of panic, a fear of what I will feel when I can no longer sit on the patio, watch the bayou, listen to the birds, look for old owl. I had a moment last night, when I was out with friends listening to good Cajun music, and trying to dance the Cajun two-step while discovering that I cannot talk and dance at the same time. It was in those moments, between dances, when I sat back to watch others dance, that I recalled one of my first impressions of Louisiana.

Everybody here, no matter the age or the mental ability, dances when the accordion plays. It is a joy to watch families, from toddlers to octagenarians, taking to the floor and doing a more than passable two-step. Last night, as I watched, I had more than a moment to miss that.

This morning is another of those moments. I don't have the photographic ability to catch the shimmer of the water in the morning sun, nor the ability to record the birds as their conversation carries from tree to tree. I have only my words to say, this morning, that good-bye, even when it's right, sometimes carries as much pain as when it is wrong.