Finding meaning in our past
We were at my brother’s 50th birthday party in the garden. My very elderly and frail father, then in the early stages of dementia was sitting quietly on a bench watching. One of my brother’s friends sat down next to him, introduced himself and then asked him what he had done in the world of work when he was younger. I still remember the pleasure with which my father responded, and thinking what a wonderfully curious and dignified way that was to open a conversation with an old man. He would not have wanted to talk about his current painful circumstances but he had so many stored away experiences to share.
I was reminded of that event when writing this fourth post inspired by Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Out of the, sometimes scary, idea that we must own responsibility for the choices we make and that constitute our lives, Frankl draws a comfort for later life.
the transitoriness of our existence in no way makes it meaningless. But it does constitute our responsibleness; for everything hinges upon our realizing the essentially transitory possibilities. A person constantly makes their choice concerning the mass of present potentialities; which of these will be condemned to nonbeing and which will be actualized? Which choice will be made an actuality and forever, an immortal “footprint in the sands of time”? At any moment, a person must decide, for better or for worse, what will be the monument of their existence.
Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, 1946 *
Original painting by Lynne Cameron
Usually…people consider only the stubble field of transitoriness and overlook the full granaries of the past, wherein they had salvaged once and for all their deeds, their joys, and also their sufferings. Nothing can be undone, and nothing can be done away with, I should say having been is the surest kind of being.
What reasons have they to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for them? “No thank you,” they will think.
“Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. “
It must have been nicer when the wisdom of age was respected and younger people crowded round, eager to hear our stories and advice. If it was ever so. But Frankl’s words were a healthy reminder to me that those full granaries are there for me to contemplate in the long evenings and sleepless nights. Let me be sure to have them written down or collected so that others can remind me when I forget.
* I have updated generic pronouns in the translation of Frankl’s text from he, him, his to the more inclusive they, them, their