QUARANTINED LIFE

Many people ask themselves: How do I maintain my security? When does this quarantine end, and what is the point for me? Some biologists and historians believe that life scientifically has no meaning, as it is the result of blind processes of evolution, or of chance and necessity. Physicist Max Planck does not hold the same idea, and psychologists hold that finding meaning in individual experience can produce positive effects on life and death.

This was what Dr. Viktor E. Frankl discovered by observing life in the Nazi concentration camps. In the midst of the horror he was able to discover that the search for meaning in life is what gives humanity value. In his work "The Man in Search of Meaning" he says: "The prisoner who lost faith in the future — in his future — was condemned. With the loss of faith in the future, it also lost its spiritual support; abandoned and decayed he became a subject of physical and mental annihilation” (Editorial Herder, Barcelona, ​​p.76). The meaning of life is not found in inert matter or in biological processes, but in something intangible that is the spiritual support of being. Max Planck, author of quantum theory, (Nobel Prize 1914) said that the universe did not resemble a machine, but a mind that was the matrix of all things. A mind is not a machine of chance but a fluid structure capable of giving coherence, unity and coordination.

Dr. Frankl presents cases that demonstrate the link between future loss of faith and the ultimate consequences. He mentions Case “F”, the head of his barracks, a well-known musician and librettist, who one day confided a strange dream to him. A voice told him to ask what he wanted to know and all his questions would be answered. His question was: When would the war end? But he reiterated: "For me!" In other words, he wanted to know when they would be released and their sufferings would end. He had the dream in February 1945, and told him in early March; Dr. Frankl asked him what answer the voice gave him. "F" said to him: "March thirty." When he had the dream he was full of hope, convinced that his dream was not wrong. On March 29, the news coming from the end of the war was not encouraging, at night he fell ill with a very high fever, the next day, on the 30th, he fell into a state of delirium, lost consciousness, and the day 31 passed away. The appearance was that he died of typhus.

Dr. Frankl explains the relationship between a person's mood and their values ​​and hopes, or how the lack of both affects the immune capacity of the body. He knew that if a loss of hope and courage occurs, it can lead to death. In the case of his friend it was the loss of faith in the future and his will to live. He had a paralysis of faith in the future, which made his body sick and his dreams come true. He also noted that the death rate between Christmas 1944 and the New Year increased dramatically. His explanation of the abnormality was not due to worsening working conditions, food ration, climate change, or the outbreak of new epidemics, but rather in the hope of most prisoners that they would be released.

For Christmas; when this hopeful event did not occur, they lost their value and discouragement overcame them.

 

Frankl quotes Nietzsche: "Whoever has something to live for is able to bear any how." This well-known phrase leads us to ask what is my something to live for that gives meaning to my life? For the answer, Frankl inverts the question, since the search has a focus from the human ego. For this reason, he maintains that "it does not really matter that we do not expect anything from life, but rather that life expects something from us." This means that life has a meaning, a consciousness and a cosmological mind, which, as Max Plank said, is the matrix of all things. We can stop asking about the meaning of life; and think as beings whom life continually and unceasingly interrogates. The answer should not be one of words but of righteous conduct and action. Life with an ethical sense. Ultimately, living means taking responsibility for finding the right answers to the problems you pose.

Each of us must define what that something is that gives us hope to live, makes us travel to the future and overcome any obstacle. But also looking back to what we have lived and has made us what we are, because this gave meaning to the joys we had and no one will be able to tear them from our memory, and those, however small, gave meaning to our life, even the sufferings and frustrations also gave it. Sense that we capitalize because they taught us something. Even in the face of death, for those in a prison camp, it made sense to face it with dignity.

Whoever thinks that a few months of quarantine is a lot, think about the years that Anne Frank spent hidden with constant danger over her life. Quarantine gives us an opportunity to reconsider whether we should make changes for our well-being. Remember, Anne Frank, who spent two years and a month hiding with her family in Amsterdam behind a library during the Nazi occupation, however was able to write: "Think of all the beauty around you and be happy."

Many times we do not perceive the beneficial effect of an ethical and generous thought that, according to Dr. Frankl, blessed even his enemies and jailers. He says that after being released, he learned from another prisoner doctor like himself that the Director of the Camp had sent many times to buy medicines for the sick in a near town, and paid significant sums out of his pocket. After liberation, what did the Jews do about this SS commander? Well, three young Hungarian Jews hid him in the Bavarian forests. Later they appeared before the North American officials eager to capture this chief. They would tell them where he was if they promised that they would not harm him. The American officer hesitated, but accepted, made the promise and kept it.

Therefore, it is important to maintain something ethical to live for, something compassionate, especially during times of emergency, war or pandemic: preserve hope. There were many cruel guards, but it was not the case with that commander, who was reinstated in a similar role: to take care of collecting clothes from neighboring villages, and to distribute them among the released prisoners. He also had something to live for that enabled him to be redeemed.

Governments can be wrong, and make mistakes, but we can have compassion, because it is very human to be wrong.

Quarantine gives us the opportunity to meditate and look at the beautiful things that surround us and not be weak, but strong. An honest thinker is always free.

Only those who are slaves to their desires or egocentric thoughts are imprisoned.

Let us be free to get out of quarantine, with love for ourselves and all humanity of which we are part as one body.

Blessings, Pietro

July/2020©Pietro Grieco