To start this blog post off with some words, I enjoyed the reading about Frankl very much. His analogy of the Holocaust prisoners being released was powerful. The title of the section was “Man’s Search for Meaning”, but did the prisoners find meaning after their release? The book stated that they slowly left the concentration camp and walked down the road, observing the land where they were held captive. Frankl said that they looked for freedom, even though they knew they were free, but they couldn’t grasp the idea of freedom. These prisoners were left with an existential crisis. Frankl says that the meaning comes later, when these once-prisoners have learned to look back on their experience. How could one even find meaning in something so evil? For Frankl, he believes the meaning is that they no longer fear anything because of the hell that they endured. I think trying to find meaning in your captivity is such an extreme example. It makes a lasting impression and strikes the heart of every person. Frankl also discusses his idea of tragic optimism. Tragic optimism is described as the optimism that is generated in a human even though that human knows that he or she will one day feel pain, guilt, and death. If we could be given the conscious choice of living or dying the instant that we are born, what would we do? Keep in mind that you are well aware of the suffering that accompanies humanity, the sickness, and death. Would we have the will power to say yes or no to life? Maybe it is better that we are not given that choice and that we have a default answer, which is to keep living. As Frankl said, by being optimistic we can reflect on our lives and find the benefits in our negative experiences and use those benefits to better ourselves.