A Mans search for Meaning
One can see how the tortured soul has begun to act out his own evil thoughts. He does this by justifiying that terrible things have been done to him. Living in this fashion is natural and easy. The author urges others to rise above his situation and persi
“across a field with me toward the camp when suddenly we came to a field of green crops. Automatically I avoided it but he drew his arm through mine and dragged me through it. I stammered something about not treading down the young crops. He became annoyed, gave me an angry look, and shouted 'You don't say! And hasn't enough been taken from us? My wife and child have been gassed—not to mention everything else—and you would forbid me to tread on a few stalks of oats!”
Frankl, Viktor E. (Viktor Emil), 1905-1997, author. Man's Search for Meaning : an Introduction to Logotherapy.
The quote is a remark said by a fellow prisoner in Auschwitz. One can see how the tortured soul has begun to act out his own evil thoughts. He does this by justifiying that terrible things have been done to him. Living in this fashion is natural and easy. The author urges others to rise above his situation and persist with his own ethics. We have the natural tendancy to propagate behavior that was done to us, breaking out of this cycle requires meaning.
As a child I could see a version of this behaviour in myself. Coming to Canada when I was 6 years old, I was already a troublemaker in India, and I was loud, I was doing the same in my first grade in Canada when this one guy punched me and this other person pissed on me. I don’t know their intentions, I’m not sure if I was the one that aggravated them, but I didn’t know any English to aggravate them and I wasn’t the fighting type with my fists. But then second grade came around and I was doing the same to the new kids that just got to Canada I was bullying my own people. I’ve been told that I was shoving and was even stepping on the jackets of my people. I distinctly remember showing some newer Indians on the bus the middle finger. I was in grade 2, they were in grade 1 and 2. I hope they didn’t know what that meant. I must have thought it was the norm in this culture to bully newcomers, or maybe I was pure evil. It is in our nature to repeat what happened to ourselves to other people. This is just a hypothesis, hopefully, I’m not just a terrible person on the inside, but as I got older I stopped bullying kids so directly, and resorted to verbal abuse for the rest of my elementary days with just a fight or two in between.
I moved back to India in grade 7. I was the one being bullied, as I was an outsider. A couple of guys, a few of years older than who had the gracious gift of hitting puberty, decided to jump me after soccer practice. I’m sure I aggravated them, as a means to their violent response, but I disagree that the lengths they went to were not needed. A quick slap to the face or a shin kick would have sufficed. Not long after, I had the chance to do this as well, in a couple of years, when I hit puberty and was in a position of power, surprisingly I did not. As I got older I developed a moral compass, I started to reason more, and exist outside of just repeating the cycle of hate. I believe this is because I grew as a person, the little power I wielded would be enough to scar them for the rest of their lives. I did not want to bring the same hate. My life had meaning, outside of repeating the same natural cycle. I had momentarily transcended my animalistic tendency, for I had meaning. This helped me see past my actions of today, and think about how my actions will affect myself and others in the future. Yet, this still happens in my life in subtle ways.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t talked behind someone's back or got back at someone for being mean to me, but I’m gonna try and make sure I’m the last person in the chain of hate. I have grown up from violence but not from these little things, and I hope to do that as well. Writing about this is easy but doing it is the hard part.
Thanks for reading :)
