We’ve got a lot going on here, what with adjusting to 8 kids and all… all good. It’s amazing how much joy there is in this. It’s not easy - nothing worth having is easy. But it has been full of joy for us, so much so that I can’t express it and I tear up even trying. But, anyway, not a lot of time for independent thought. So, with so many good thoughts already out there, I’ll continue my theme of borrowing from others:
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked throug 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. And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision which determined whether you would or would not sbumit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.”
-Victor Frankl, Auswitz survivor, as written in his autobiographical account of his concentration camp experience - Man’s Search For Meaning In case you’re wondering, yes - you should read it.
I’m convinced that I lived most of the last twenty years imprisoned by my own numb paralysis - a paralysis that prevented me from “shaking off those golden shackles” (image from classic Choir song that I find so appropriate). The Nazi death camps were designed to strip every shred of individuality and choice - inmates were stripped naked and shaved of every hair on their body. The use of names was forbidden - inmates became naked, unrecognizable numbers, without hope of any fate other than they saw around them. Yet some shone in those circumstances, making full use of Frakl’s “last of the human freedoms”.
I have to wonder if we’re really in all that different a state of living here and now. I know I was imprisoned by “normalcy”, leading a normal, respectable life, but in reality imprisoned in conformity to the world’s model of family, success, financial/life goals. But I’m now free of that. I’ve shaken off those golden shackles that I accepted for so long. I’m nowhere near perfect - in fact, I’m no closer to that than I ever was. It’s not about being good, it’s about being free. Truly living. Accepting real risk, rejecting the path of least resistance. Making actual use of the last of the human freedoms. It’s not easy, but I can’t begin to describe the joy.
Posted by Jim at 04:58 PM. Filed under: Jim's Existential Ramblings •
