On Purpose
The central argument Frankl makes is that life has meaning whatever the circumstances, even when profound suffering is encountered. The title itself is the core message: we can and must say „yes to life“ not because of circumstances, but in spite of them. It is easy to say „yes to life“ when everything is going well. If that „yes“ is contingent on circumstances, however, it can never be sustained because, as we all know, circumstances change as much as the weather in my native Ireland. Everything, even our existence in this incarnation, is transient…
This Time
Even the most articulate and hard-working of us may find we cannot erase the imprint of a parent who was too busy or depressed to notice us or who seemed to consider us a burden. We then interpret this as our caregiver wishing we’d never been born. When we internalise such stances, our shame, if it could speak, would repeatedly tell us that “the world would be a better place if we were dead”. Our lives change only when we reconstruct the missing inner maps that should have been formed in safety and attunement…
Unlearning
When I thought I was heading to the most densely populated central quarter of town, I could feel the energy of the city ebb away into the calm of the countryside, beyond the countless improvised homes of the peri-urban belt. Then, in a moment of clarity, the riddle solved itself. Of course! I had, as always, been working on the premise that the sun was in the south. Not here! Roughly 2,500 km south of the equator, the sun appears to be in the north. This was the first of many lessons in unlearning which came my way during my African adventure…
State of Grace
When the guided meditation concluded, we all slowly “came back”, stretching limbs in all directions and blinking our eyes to re-adapted to the artificial room lighting. There were many smiles to be seen on the faces of the small group which had thus gathered in our corner. After a period of silence, a conversation slowly began to unfold on what we had just experienced. We quickly began to explore such topics as connection and alienation. Why is it that, during deep meditation, some of us find our bliss tempered by sadness, even grief. And what about the high degree of sensitivity that some of us manifest? Is high sensitivity simply more than a somatic or emotional manifestation? Is it not primarily spiritual sensitivity?
