search for meaning

2011.05.04
Logotherapy, keeping in mind the essential transitoriness of human existence, is not pessimistic but rather activistic. To express this point figuratively we might say: The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadmess that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him? "No, thank you," he 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. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy."
Victor Frankl, from "Man's Search for Meaning".
I appreciate its support for my (sometimes seemingly narcissistic) deliberate journaling...
Boston -- Ambulances have added a lower whooping voice to the tradition siren. Why? Maybe for folks who can't hear high pitches? -- Sounds weird!
For me, what it comes down to is this: no one is evil in their own mind, at least not at the time they're committing the acts. Everyone just has their own (often conflicting) priorities and agendas that they try to balance as best they can. Now, some of these priorities can be, in a reasonable objective sense, be recognizable as small minded and greedy and even Evil, but still -- once you let supernatural fundamentalism into the mix, most bets for a universal objective evilness evaluation are out the damn window anyway, since we can only guess at what God wants.
From a recent Facebook thread (I'm quoting myself here, but hey.)

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/05/anatomy-of-a-fake-quotation/238257/ - best coverage of the "fake" MLK jr quot
Holy pipe-smoking cats, Bangai-O HD is out today? Why are the Twitters not singing hosannas and rejoicing over this RIGHT NOW???
SIMULATE the effects of early onset dementia by looking at the 'people you may know' bit on Facebook.