I finish "Man's Search For Meaning" on my camping trip. And looking up the side of the mountain I immediately have an opportunity to put his ideas in practice. It's better than NetFlix!
I finish "Man's Search For Meaning" on my camping trip. And looking up the side of the mountain I immediately have an opportunity to put his ideas in practice. It's better than NetFlix!
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Transcript: Mischa Z: 00:03 All right. Victor E Frankl, Frankl Frankl. Yes. Victor E Frankl. "Man's Search For Meaning" more thoughts of my camping trip. Um, on the last episode, I was going to say how Victor Frankl perhaps inspired me, or I got to draw a direct correlation between service and, um, how Victor Frankel thinks what drives man is meaning having meaning in your life. And Victor breaks it down into three main ways. It's not necessarily what I'm going to do on this episode because I've not prepared. Gosh, you'd hope I would be, but there's lots of winging it these days. Um, it seems that there's always something going on. Let it rip, let it rip, take the messy action. Anybody out there wanting to create a podcast, a blog, a YouTube channel who wants to start, you know, getting their thoughts, ideas, their message out there, or maybe they just want to entertain who knows what the motive is, but they want to use a blog, a YouTube channel, um, a podcast as a mechanism for this or this, the source to do that.
Mischa Z: 01:29 Take the messy action. Just take the messy action. That's what I'm going to tell you because you probably, well, I'm guessing you don't have an audience yet, so no one's going to be there to judge you. And if you do have an audience while they know who you are anyways, so no big deal take the messy action is which what I seem to be gifted with doing, taking the messy action on my podcast. So Viktor Frankl, um, you know, one of the things he talks about is his, his meaning how having a purpose in your life, and it does not have to be big and it doesn't have to be, it's having meaning in the moment. That's what it is. It's having meaning meaning in the moment. And he talks a lot about it in regards to the concentration camp experience and how people can derive meaning in life, even though they're headed towards death rapidly or they're seeing it or, or all of this.
Mischa Z: 02:40 And I am, I'm hesitant to talk about it because it's so extreme. And I'm a white boy from Wyoming who now lives in Encinitas, California making podcast episodes. So, um, one thing I had been saying to a few friends is, you know, as we're trying to detach from controlling people, places and things, and trying to learn how to find joy or meaning in, in the moment and cede control of, of how we think people are supposed to act, feel, think what they're supposed to do, you know, as we're scaling God up bigger and bigger, and then, you know, inevitably someone brings these extreme circumstances of murderers and rapists and, you know, military leaders or, you know, leaders who do lots of damage. Right? And I had this thought of like, well, can we have our god so big and trust so much that there is something greater than this moment of our human existence, that if we were to have an executioner or we could smile lovingly to that executioner, or as they were opening the door to, you know, the, the, the hangman's noose for us, and I'm doing the best I can to talk about that idea, to be willing, to talk about that idea, to conceptualize that idea, given my, given my circumstances.
Mischa Z: 04:35 Um, and so fast forward to reading Victor Frankel's book, and then in essence, he's talking about love and finding meaning in the moment as you're, you know, suffering extremely and perhaps dying, um, or being put to death. Um, I'm going to still work on how to talk about that. I think they're, they're interesting ideas. One idea that he floats is, um, is like: if you put even a small amount of gas in an enclosed space, the gas evenly distributes through that space, perfectly, and he correlates that to that, to suffering. He's like, so it doesn't matter how much suffering you have in a human consciousness. If it's a little, it's going to fill up the space. Same as gas fills up the void. And so he's like, Hey, his thesis is suffering a suffering, which is pretty crazy, right? Cause this dude went through for three years in four concentration camps.
Mischa Z: 06:07 Um, anyway, I get my, thank you for listening to that. I'm going to try to continue to talk about the ideas that were sussed out, um, by Viktor Frankl in his book and within me. And one thing was, is finding meaning one way to find meaning is service. How can you serve in the moment? And, uh, I love that because I'm all about service. I've talked about it on other episodes. It's a big part of, you know, recovery of the recovery community is carrying the message. How can you be of service? And it's obviously within churches and religions and, and there's plenty of nonprofits out there. And so it's, it's this, isn't a new idea by any means on a big scale, as well as on a small scale. Being nice, forgiving, smiling, opening the door for somebody. Like it can be the tiniest things, a gracious nod, letting somebody in within traffic, like letting somebody in without throwing a fit, flipping them off. You know, if somebody cuts you off graciously, be cut off smile, wave. Thank you.
Mischa Z: 07:31 Um, so it's, it's about nine o'clock at night on the camping trip and it's dark and there is a heavy, there's this part of a climb to get to the next lake. I wish I could remember what it is, but it was up heavy, heavy, like you almost wanted to have ropes, but you know, people were doing it with backpacks and things. But a couple of guys we look up and all of a sudden we see headlamps at nine o'clock at night, scaling down this chute to get back to crater, to, um, iceberg lake. And, um, it was hard enough for people to do that part of the hike in daylight let alone at night. So it was, it was honestly better than watching Netflix because it's a very far away, but you can see the two headlight beams and a very dramatic, very dramatic.
Mischa Z: 08:31 They make it that it takes them half an hour, 45 minutes, whatever it is. And, um, they walked by us because the trail goes by our campsite and we're talking to them for a second. And I say, Hey, I'm inspired all of a sudden, Hey, do you guys need a campsite? Because they're clearly tired by now. It's 10 o'clock at night and you can't see anything to find a campsite. And, um, I happened to know where a couple of campsites were and they were so relieved and so excited and so happy. And, um, and I just thought of Victor Frankl and being of service and, and how in that moment after just finishing his book, I got to ask those guys if I could help them with a campsite. And we showed him this, uh, ridiculous campsite that we found, and they were just so happy.
Mischa Z: 09:28 And, you know, I was gratified in the moment gratified in that I had meaning. And, um, it was just a really cool experience and to be in nature, just feeling the whole vibe of that, all the flow of it all. And, uh, yes, I'm doing a quick time check. Um, that's what I've got for you. The serendipitous events that led to me finishing the whole book and then yeah, I would encourage anybody to read "Man's Search For Meaning". Great, great book, just a great, great book. And I'll talk more about it. Love to all again, I'm going to say, get your tails out there and go camping. Get out in nature detached for two or three days, if you can, but I guess you can do silent retreats, all sorts of things. Um, many people are doing that. I'm just going to encourage you to do it again. If you have done it and absolutely get out there, if you haven't. All right, I'm done peace out.