Man’s Search for Meaning – Book recommendation by Graeme Fowler
Rebekah Loconte: So first of all tell me the title of your book and tell me a little bit about it.
Graeme Fowler: The book is called Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, a survivor of Auschwitz. In the first half of his book, he talks about what kept him alive. The thing that gave him hope was meaning and purpose. In the second half of the book, he argues that everyone craves meaning, more than love. He says that you have got to crave purpose. He attributes that to him surviving the concentration camp. And so it’s a heavy book, but rich.
RL: How did you come across this book?
GF: Well, it was in university originally: a mentor recommended it to me. and that essentially was a launching pad for a lot of my future studies.
RL: You mention it’s a heavy but rich book? Is it the kind of book that’s hard to read at parts so you have to put it down? Or is it kind of a quick read?
GF: I would say it could be a quick and easy read. It’s not a long book. but it’s about suffering. And so it requires an emotional investment to the book. It isn’t necessarily for enjoyment.
RL: in what ways has this shifted your thinking or actually changed your life?
GF: It shifted the way I see myself, my students, my family. One of the greatest problems I see amongst young people is sometimes a numbing detachment from reality because reality is painful. And this lack of purpose is almost a nihilism: ‘everything is meaningless, the world is burning up, the economy is tanking’, There’s almost this feeling amongst young people of ‘what’s the point? I might as well just have fun with life’. And for me, this book has shifted the way I approached teaching. It shifted what I want to do with my life, with helping people and it’s connected deeply to Christ. Love is the ultimate goal but through suffering, there can be redemption. Not always, but there can be. Really, people are hungry for something more and meaning is a big part of that.
RL: Is there a line or a paraphrase from the book that would be your promo line for why someone should read it?
GF: Again, it’s heavy, but he talks about why some people don’t make it in the concentration camp. But then he remembers his wife and his loved ones and that gave him courage because it gave him meaning; love, at that point, gave him meaning and that spurred him on to continue. I remember reading that and being like, oh, I’ve had good examples of love in my life, but I didn’t think that in a circumstance like that, that love would be the thing that survival is actually dependent on.
RL: Did his meaning shift in the latter half or was it always about love as a purpose to continue in the suffering?
GF: Yeah, I think people can find meaning in different ways and love, he says, is one of those things. But I do think at the end, his main argument is that love is the ultimate goal which is parallel to the Christian message of love and hope and meaning.
RL: I was going to ask why I personally should read this book but I feel like you kind of already mentioned it just through your dissection of it.
GF: I can add onto that, if you like. I think something that can be relevant to young people is that he didn’t choose his circumstances. He didn’t have control of the things that happened to him, but he had control over how he responded to it and that was so dignifying instead of dehumanizing. And for me, that was a lesson I think we could all cling to. And there is something so huge, so human, about us that wants to be dignified and when we have control of our response, I think that is dignifying.
RL: One more question. You said that this book applies to you on so many levels but you also mentioned specifically your teaching. Can you talk a little bit about that?
GF: I think that before my students are motivated by the content, they want to know why the content matters. And so for me, whether it’s Social Studies or English, I will usually start with that. Simon Senick did a TED Talk about the reason why leaders should always start with the why behind something. So in my lessons I approach teaching as “Here’s why this might matter to you, or be important to you, or why it might be significant in your life potentially.” I can’t force that, but I want to articulate the bigger picture. before I jump into content. And I don’t know if I would have done that before the book.
RL: Thanks, Graeme.
Next up for Graeme will be Lead like a Saint. It’s all about the life lessons from Saint Patrick.
