The Soul's Home is Meaning | Elisabeth Lukas

If the old parent signals, look, life is worth living from the beginning to the end. There are still some meaningful opportunities to enjoy life up until old age and to still shape it a little. Even if that means that one sits somewhere calmly and thoughtfully and enjoys the beautiful sunshine. One can still do something out of life up until the end. If one can truly signal this message, then it serves as an act of love towards the younger people. Because then they will be able to walk in self-trust towards aging. Moreover, as an elderly person, one should make sure, out of love towards the young, to prepare betimes for getting older, to withdraw in smaller rooms, to clear things up, which belongings will be transferred to whom and so forth. Since there are lots of inheritance disputes, one should clear things up in advance and begin to distribute already instead of hoarding things which are not needed anyways. There are many things one can do for the sake of young people in order to make it easier for them. Because as soon as the parents die, it is a bereavement and a shock and loss. But when the younger ones know that their parents have been satisfied and happy with their lives up until the end and were having a good farewell with dignity, then that would be a very nice gift from the parents. Professor Dr. Lukas, you are one of the best-known logotherapists and are viewed as a master student of the great Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. Your books have been published in 18 languages, according to my knowledge, and there are around 150 titles in total. You are probably the most competent person to talk to when it comes to the question of meaning in life, since logotherapy is a meaning-centered therapy. Maybe you would like to introduce the basic elements of this great approach yourself. As you have just mentioned it correctly, it is a meaning-centered therapy. The term logotherapy comes from the Greek word logos and can be translated as meaning. Logos has actually various meanings, such as a word or the divine reason or plan, but also a meaning. Frankl started to think about the meaning of a human's life early on in his works due to the fact that he had a very different fundamental approach than most psychotherapists at the time. Back then the question arose, why does someone get sick? Or why does someone become mentally ill? But Frankl asked this question differently. He asked the question, why does someone stay healthy? What keeps a human being healthful? Or what makes a human recover again after a phase of illness? That question led him to the following realization. A significant factor to that is if a human being sees some sort of meaning in his own life and of course if he leads a meaningful life. That is which keeps one healthy and what motivates one to do anything in order to become healthy again as well as to stay healthy. Viktor Frankl addressed the spiritual in a human being and therefore pointed out certain dimensions which go beyond the physical and mental. What is the difference between the soul and the mind according to Frankl? Well, that's indeed some sort of deliberate confusion around the term soul. I mean everyone interprets something different when it comes to the soul. In general it is said that the soul is the result of one's state of mind or how a person feels. According to psychology the soul is being translated into the psyche and is interpreted as an accumulation of a person's behavioral patterns and experiences which includes one's cognition and emotions. Obviously in religions the soul has again a different meaning which goes a little further even. Due to this tangle Frankl tried to bring in some clarity around the term soul. He viewed the translation of soul in terms of the psyche and said yes, we do not only have a physical dimension but also a psychic one which is the dimension of our emotions and our cognition. Just as psychology is researching and studying it. But, he said, there is even more to it when it comes to a human being. Something that lifts the human being above the animalistic. Since emotions and cognitions can be found in animals to a certain extent too. Thus Frankl asked himself what is it that makes a human human? What specifically is being humane? What exactly is this human dimension which is not shared with the plant and animal kingdom but is only assigned to the human being? This primeval aspect, what is it? During the process of finding those answers he discovered certain processes, for instance volitional processes, questions of value and meaning. This is something that belongs to the essence of the humankind. No monkey would wonder about what the meaning or purpose of life is even though a monkey is able to think and generate certain tools for himself. But he won't ask himself about meaning and value, about good and bad. And he won't have this longing for understanding the meaning. The all-encompassing meaning that one could also describe as God. By that I also mean the willingness to search for a higher dimension or a divine dimension. That as well is something that specifically humans carry within them. Therefore Frankl came to the conclusion that he wants to call this human dimension, which belongs to the human and only to the human, the spiritual dimension. Sometimes this is being mistaken for the act of thought. But I really want to emphasize that if we talk about the spiritual dimension in logotherapy, we do not mean the intelligence of a person, neither do we mean the intellect, which of course is higher than the ones animals have. We mean that which characterizes the human being itself. It also includes some sort of freedom and responsibility. The freedom to make decisions which go beyond the instinctive and compulsive reactions. The ability to make clear and conscious decisions while at the same time being able to take responsibility for them. That is specifically human and that is a human being's spiritual dimension. How can the spiritual aspect of a human being show itself in day-to-day life, for example? This can be noticed if the spiritual and the mental drift apart in some type of way. One realizes that they don't fall into one dimension if that happens. For example, imagine a person who has gained weight and has become slightly overweight even. This person walks down the street and passes a pastry shop where he comes across many temptations, such as chocolate pieces and cakes, and somehow he would like to go inside. Therefore, mentally speaking, there is kind of a desire for satisfaction. It would create some sort of self-satisfaction if he would actually eat that piece of cake. But spiritually speaking, he could say, well, that wouldn't be very beneficial for me. I am overweight already and should lose weight for the sake of my health. I should withstand this mental urge and be brave enough to walk away from it. Frankl called this the defiant power of the human spirit. Thus, one could defy something, this is where the human aspect comes in, by asking the question of meaning. Does it make sense to eat the cake or does it make sense to go without it? This is just a very simple example from everyday life, but that was what you've asked for. Yes, it would make sense to withstand it and the ability to recognize that is human, just as the ability to follow that meaningfulness even if the mind might push one into a different direction. That shows the spirituality of a human being. So, the spiritual is connected with the so-called inner voice or, if there are several voices, the most inner voice. Yes, it's just like you've said it. There are several voices within a person which respond in kind of a choir. Some voices are the ones we have learned. Different models which have been adapted from parents, teachers and so on. You should or you should not. There are role models which can affect a person, but there are bad examples as well. Moreover, there are instinctive and compulsive voices which are archaic, of course, and arise from the deeper layers of the brain. There are many voices within a person. But there is one very special voice. Frankel used to call it by the old term conscience. But what is it exactly? It must be more than just something we've learned. It is something within us that always creates the longing for the good, for truth and for beauty. It seems as if we would receive that with very fine antennas. Like there's something that would be good now. Something that pleads for the goodness in people. That is the voice of conscience. It is actually a great friend of mankind which always whispers you could choose something good right now, if you like, and I will show you the way there. I'm not saying that we do follow the voice of conscience all the time, but it truly is the innermost voice as well as the most honest voice within us. One can say that Frankel saw more in humans than just the body and the mind. In that sense, he represented a non-materialistic worldview, is that correct? That is correct. He had no pure materialistic viewpoint. He always said, if we only think materialistic, then that will turn into hidden nihilism. Because we will think in terms of, that is nothing more than. Nihilism shows itself through, it's nothing but. It's nothing but matter, it's nothing but brain function, for example. Love is nothing but the sublimation of one's sexual drive. Will is nothing but a veiled drive that pushes someone into a certain direction. One always devalues something and pushes it into a lower category. A human is nothing but a naked monkey, for example, or some sort of robot. The brain is nothing but a computer and so on. Frankel, on the other hand, said that we should not devalue. We should maintain our amazement at creation. Creation is so diverse anyways that it cannot be defined unilaterally. Do you see a connection between sense and our sensory perceptions and sensory impressions, as well as the physical senses, what one seeks and strives for? Are there any conceptual connections, in your opinion? Actually not really. The German word sense comes from the Old High German Sinan and means to walk on a path or step towards something. It has nothing to do with the physiological senses like our eyes, ears, taste and so forth. The physiological senses belong to the physical dimension. They are, of course, perceptual organs. So in one way we could find a parallel if we think of perception. For example the eyes perceive colors or shapes, the ear perceives tones and our sense of touch feels objects and so on. Therefore we could say that our sense organ conscience, since it's an organ that senses the meaningful that is good, perceives something which is valuable and which is worthy of being realized. In terms of perception we could indeed draw a parallel here. It is often strokes of fate, like the death of a loved one, the death of a child or some serious illness, that make people wonder about the meaning of life. Do you believe there is one particular purpose of life? First of all I doubt that a stroke of fate makes one wonder about the meaning of life. Maybe it makes one doubt the meaning of life. Triggers for such doubts are either cruel strokes of fate or very pleasing phases in life. That seems kind of strange but sometimes if a person feels too well he might lose sight of his purpose too. But wondering about the meaning of life, that is something people do constantly somehow. It is inevitable for human beings, even when it comes to insignificant decisions which may not have a big impact on one's faith but are rather smaller considerations. Such as whether one should do this training or the other one or whether to go on a trip with that friend or not to and do something else instead. Even here the question of meaning appears. Now back to your original question whether there is one particular purpose in life. Obviously every situation has its own challenges. Therefore we could talk about the purpose of a moment which differs from person to person and changes hourly. For example my purpose in this moment is to answer your questions as well as I can. That is now the purpose of this moment. As soon as you leave though there will be something else that awaits me to be of purpose. Then it will no longer be my task to answer questions but maybe to cook myself a good lunch or to call a friend or to continue on working on a text. According to this example one can see that the meaning and purpose changes from hour to hour as well as from person to person. You have a different meaningful task to fulfill than I do. Thus every other human being has a different meaningful task to fulfill in each moment. There is no one particular purpose. There is purpose which changes again and again. If we broaden the concept of meaning away from the moment then we can ask ourselves what the meaning of a particular life phase might be. For example raising a child or completing a training or doing some particular job. At the end of a life path one could look back at it and indeed ask himself what was this whole purpose of my life? Which meaning did my path have? Of course even then we could find several ones. But in retrospect one might be able to summarize and recognize some kind of meaningful path in his life. That cannot be foreseen though but rather recognized in retrospect. In the German book with the translated title The Soul's Home is Meaning you comment on allegories of Viktor Frankl. One of them deals with the interaction between a specific purpose of some situation and the remembrance in our lives. Do you think there is a path, as you have mentioned it, that runs through one's whole life that contains certain decisions that seem meaningful and that were ultimately part of a larger whole? Is that the case for every person? It can be assumed that these kind of red lines can be found if one looks for them. If one looks at his own life in retrospect one can see that those strokes of faith that you have mentioned earlier can even make us grow and mature sometimes or change us in some form. Ultimately they have led to something good. Maybe they were responsible for some significant meeting or an important correction in life. Maybe one was quite desperate first since there seemed to be no outcome but eventually new paths opened up. Once we look back we are often times able to say well actually there was something good about it, even if it was difficult back then. Sometimes though we do not see that, whether there was this kind of line or not. Sometimes even coincidences play a huge role in life since it can lead us on a path that somehow was even intended for us in a way. But even that stays a secret at the end of the day because we can't interpret that in everything. Frankl said that coincidence is the place where miracles nest or can nest. I for instance coincidentally visited a lecture that was held by Frankl. That was not a compulsory lecture for psychology students back then when I was studying. I came in by chance, yet it has changed my whole life. It opened up a task for me since I perceived it as my personal mission to pass logotherapy to other generations later in life. Without this coincidence I would have never met Frankl and who knows what kind of a psychologist I would have become instead. Still one should not over-interpret these things and automatically see a coincidence as something like a divine ordinance. I mean there are also very brutal coincidences such as car accidents where if one would have driven away a few minutes earlier nothing would have happened. Not every coincidence is a miracle where one is being led to a certain path. But sometimes that indeed could be the case. Terms like burnout or depression indicate that even in our affluent society we do find mental crises quite often. Especially in an affluent society. Why is that the case? If a person feels too well or too bad then he will start developing doubts in meaning as I have mentioned before. In fact some kind of a balanced middle way would be good for people where they are still challenged and life is not too easy for them and at the same time not too difficult. Having a crisis about the meaning of one's life is actually nothing pathological in and of itself. Questioning the meaning of life only shows the maturity of a person, shows that he is accountable. A toddler for example would not yet ask for the meaning of life. Therefore the question itself is legit. But one has to look for answers which might be a struggle. One has to discover those answers. I once brought up the following comparison. If someone is inside a burning house and he hears the alarm system then it is actually good if he hears it since it makes him aware of the fact that he should leave the house immediately. It is a warning that there is a hazard. But if one does not understand this warning, sits down and complains about the noise of the alarm bell then it becomes a bad thing and will eventually turn into something awful. The crisis about the meaning of one's life is similar to this metaphor. It acts like an alarm bell. One should understand it and maybe put out one's feelers for a different kind of lifestyle and think maybe I am not living correctly. Maybe I am pursuing the wrong things like money, fame, glory or anything like that and I do not become happy in doing so. Let alone enjoy my life. Maybe I leave myself sick or I am keeping conflicts alive with people around me. Therefore if one truly understands this alarm bell and starts to think about what the most meaningful act would be in one's life at this moment then that would be the solution. Do I have to do a turnaround? Do I have to take a turn into another direction? If one does understand that, then it is actually a good thing that one had a crisis in the first place since it will lead one back on a meaningful path. But if one simply complains and says I feel so miserable and depressed and nothing makes me happy and lets others feel sorry for him, well, that won't make anything better. Having a crisis about the meaning of one's life can sometimes lead to suicide. How can someone who absolutely no longer sees any purpose in their life and hopes to end their suffering by ending it begin to apply that? We have to differentiate when it comes to suicide. There are suicides that occur due to illness and not really out of the sick person's intention itself. The mental illness has developed to such an extent, like a psychosis, that it has taken over that person, so to speak. And if he or she does not have a choice anymore since his will is so blocked that he neither has the will to live nor has he the will to die then this kind of suicide is simply driven by the illness itself. These are the cases that I would like to exclude here, but they exist. My point is that one cannot evaluate all suicides in the same way. If, on the other hand, we see a suicidal tendency in a person who is basically mentally healthy but simply can't enjoy life any longer then that indeed reflects a rejection to the question of the meaning. In fact, it's not only that this person no longer feels joy in his life, he rather does not see any meaning in his life anymore. That is the actual motive to throw away one's life. In this case, we can't simply offer some random possibility to this person like well, this or that could be something of purpose. You could do or think about this or that meaningful task. Usually that is barely accepted by those people who are affected. In fact, they reject all those well-meant suggestions. But there is one thing that could be said to them. You can remind them that life changes all the time. That life phases shift constantly and that maybe someday in the future there will come this day when he himself will discover some meaning in his life again. That he might come across something that will be really appealing to him, that will touch him deeply and that makes him think yes, I would like to live for the sake of this. I want to accomplish or complete or engage in that. For this day he should keep himself. That would mean that the purpose of this moment would be to keep oneself alive and to not intentionally end it beforehand. The meaning would be to maintain oneself and to endure this supposedly meaningless state, to tolerate it and to stay alive for a moment that comes later in time when he will be given a new, meaningful possibility again that he will discover and see worth in it, worthy enough to live for it. One factor for a person's well-being is certainly one's ideological background. How is God's world and the concept of man that we carry within influencing us? First of all, I would like to mention that all of these pictures have roughly the same shade, so to speak. The conception of man, the self-image, the worldview or the image of God, all of them have the same imprint. If someone has rather negative images, then he becomes automatically self-critical. Then he believes that nothing good comes from others too. That the world is a mess and sometimes such a person will hold on to an image of a punishing God. And vice versa. Therefore these images act as a background canvas almost. And all the occurring life events of that person will fall on this canvas like pictures which are imprinted by the coloration of this canvas. For example, someone meets a nice partner. If that someone has a rather positive worldview and a positive image of humanity, then this person will be very happy about it and will have lots of hope that this will develop into a good, stable relationship. If that person has a negative worldview, on the other hand, then he might be happy to meet his partners well at first, but then that will be immediately followed by thoughts like well, this one might be unfaithful too or he will leave me as well. Or why is this person with me in the first place since I am not worth as much. I bet they will lose interest soon. So basically those doubts, negative thoughts are coming back immediately. Essentially it has to do with a fundamental fear or with a sense of basic trust. As a matter of fact, this basic trust is inherent in every person since it is a part of this spiritual dimension that we have talked about. This basic trust can be buried by negative experiences though. And therefore one has to troublesomely bring that buried sense of basic trust to the surface again. One can get it out, but that means that one has to dare to make an advance, so to speak. At this point, when one cannot quite believe that something is worth one's trust, one has to believe in advance. Now I want to consciously dare to hand myself over to the belief that ultimately this world is worth it, worthy of living in it, that I am worth living in it as well as my fellows, that this is above all the negative experiences, that value belongs to the higher powers ultimately. If one embraces this belief, he will receive something like a gift in return. That means one can definitely dock on the old basic trust again. It might take some time, but it is possible. I have observed it personally over and over again with my patients. It is possible to return to the sense of basic trust. Do you have the impression that this predominantly naturalistic, materialistic worldview that we have nowadays has an impact on our mental well-being? I don't really think that it prevails this very materialistic way of thinking. I don't think so. We can witness a denominational loss of faith, but a human being cannot help but believe in something. Consequently more superstitious or esoteric ideas as well as ideological things come up instead. The human being constantly looks for things which he can believe in. That is almost like an insatiable need in people. A longing for a world beyond the scope of human experiences. A transcendent or metaphysical longing within mankind. Even if one does no longer feel secure in a denominational image, but all denominations are only symbols after all. Symbols of something that cannot really be grasped. The difference between animals and humans is, among other things, that a human being can sense the limits of his sensing too. Animals have a limit of detection as well as humans do. But a human can at least recognize the boundary as a boundary. And whenever I sense a boundary, I always have to automatically assume that there must be something beyond that boundary, otherwise it would be no boundary. That means that due to the ability of recognizing one's own detection limits, people will always be certain that there is and must be something beyond one's own comprehension limits. In the book mentioned earlier with the translated title The Soul's Home is Meaning, there is a chapter called Veins Full of Blood. There you wrote, calcified religiosity is a petrified one due to dogmatic rites and empty ceremonies, which raises the sole claim to have a hotline to higher powers and your desires. The feeling of being accepted unconditionally is unfamiliar to people with calcified religiosity. So, how can one develop a liveliness in faith from your point of view? Frankl turned away from extremely dogmatic or narrow-minded religiosity since he warned about the so-called anthropomorphism. He warned about transporting human characteristics into the image of God. Something like, God wants obedience, God gets angry if one doesn't believe in him properly, etc. He said, those are human characteristics, that someone wants obedience or becomes angry. Actually, it shouldn't be talked about what God does or does not, what he wants or doesn't want. In fact, Frankl said, one shouldn't talk about God at all. What we should do instead is to talk to God, to God, to a you. However one pictures this you, a universal, all-embracing you, who I can talk to about anything and pour my heart out, that one can hope for. Basically, one should talk to God, not about God. If one talks about God, then it is necessarily wrong, because we want to describe something that is indescribable. God is not just an object amongst other objects, neither is he just a person amongst other persons who could be simply talked about. Therefore he always reminded about tolerance. Tolerance towards other forms of religion. All of them are paths that lead to God, he said. But they are paths after all. A nice comparison says that all the different denominations are like the different languages. Yes, one can tell the truth in any language. I can talk in English or French or Chinese and yet express the same thing. Therefore, he said, the denominations are similar to languages and there is something like a native language too, which stands for the denomination one grew up with. We grew up with Christianity, Frankl was Jewish. Yet just because one has a first language, we do not automatically say that this language is somehow better than any other language, since all of them are of same value. Many things can be indeed translated if one looks closer into religions. Almost every one of them has a similar message, that there is something which goes beyond mankind and that the human being has a divine spark within him and that there is an all-embracing purpose of this creation, which eludes human comprehension, in which suffering, blame and death still find its place though. The belief that within this all-embracing, universal purpose, which we cannot grasp, that within it even things like pain and suffering are somehow meaningful, that is true belief. Still, denominations can act as some sort of prison. If behavioral guidelines, dogmas or precepts of faith become more important than the fellow man, fanaticism can occur. How can one counteract such developments? One should have enough confidence in people that they are able to maintain a certain degree of independence, that he can review all the influences that flow onto him on his own. I mean there are a lot of outside influences. You, for instance, are talking about the influence from religion. Well, what we have heard from a religion teacher or a priest. But there are also influences from parents, who kind of taught us rules on how to behave. There are certain morals in a society. There are laws made by politicians, what one should do and be aware of or not. That is one side of the story and it's actually not really bad. Those rules have some sort of deeper meaning and they have developed themselves through traditions and so forth. But in this last instance, a human being has to evaluate in a given moment whether that which he learned is truly valid and whether it makes sense in that particular moment or not. And this can only be said by one's own voice of conscience. And if one has the feeling that something is not right, I don't mean any excuses here, but an honest evaluation and then the conclusion that something is off, then one should not obey to that. Whether it's a parent's advice or any other rule or law that imposes something onto him, maybe an order from someone or even something that comes from an ideological direction. If one says, no, I feel it within me, that is not right at this moment, then one should refuse that. A good example of that would be what happened during the Nazi period at war. Frankel worked in a Jewish hospital before he was deported. And back then there was this law about euthanasia when it comes to mentally ill people. That's how they were called. We don't like to use the term mentally ill in logotherapy. They were psychotically ill or schizophrenic people. So back then he went against the medical oath and against the law by purposely making misdiagnosis, giving out false diagnosis to people in order to save them from euthanasia. By doing so, he violated all the laws at the time in order to save people from being eliminated due to their psychosis. That is an example where he said, in this very moment I choose disobedience. One doesn't need to blindly do everything he is being told. One has to reconsider it with one's own conscience. Imagine that nowadays, for example, a young person finds a new friend group and interacts there on a regular basis. At one point the leader of this group begins to demand something like, over there we have some refugee homes, let's set them on fire. I can imagine that this young person would answer, I won't do that. I am going to risk the friendship. I am going to risk being outlawed by my peer group, but I am not going to participate in that. One should really check again by himself. Does that resonate with me? Is this right? We should encourage self-reliance, especially in young people. Death and transience are often viewed as insurmountable fundamental contradictions to the meaningfulness of life. How does Logotherapy deal with this topic of transience? Actually, that is a mistake to think that death is taking away the meaningfulness of life. In fact, it is probably the other way around. Frenkel argued that by saying, if death would not exist, how would life actually be now? Let's assume we would live eternally. Well, then we would be able to put off everything, for example. We wouldn't have to do anything now. Both of us wouldn't have to do an interview now. We could do that in a hundred years or in a thousand years. One wouldn't need any training now. One wouldn't need to marry now. One wouldn't need to have children now. One could postpone everything, since there would be an infinite amount of time for that. One could do all sorts of nonsense, since one has forever to make it up again. Therefore, being able to postpone everything would actually hinder us. We wouldn't have any necessity to act here and now and to create our life. Thus, only through the limitation of life we are being forced to make sure that we actually do all the meaningful things in life now. To do it now. So that it is carried out now. To think about things now. Whether I am doing it well or not so much. Or how can I do it better? Death is motivating us to take the lead in life and to create it according to our visions. Since we never know, even as young people, we do not know how much time we have left. That is why we feel the urge to fulfill meaning now, because it could be too late for a meaningful fulfillment at one point. And we would then regret that. Therefore, trend science is more like the engine of life rather than against life. And death doesn't need to be the end. It could be a transformation maybe. That too. The fear of death is something a lot of people are dealing with. There is an idea that behind every fear there is a fear of death. Yes, it goes even further. One could say that behind the fear of death there is the fear of conscience. Not even the fear of having done something wrong. But the fear of having missed out on something that will never be repeated again. Which again is another reason to live life to the fullest. To live intensely here and now so that we can be satisfied when life comes to an end. Of course there is also a creatural fear of death that has to be said. Because all living beings have the will to live embedded inside them, including animals and even plants. Of course we can't use the term will here when talking about plants. Still, they try to survive even on barren soil somehow. So the will to survive can be found in all living nature. Therefore, death becomes something which interferes with this will. Thus this creatural fear is somehow normal. But the human being in and of itself is the only creature who lives its life with an actual knowing of death and with this knowledge of its own finiteness. He shapes his life. That also means that he can prepare himself. And that is a smart way of living in the knowledge and awareness that life has a limit. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross called this to live a farewell life. One should, for example, not cling too much to possessions, since possessions are just loans in reality. At this moment, this apartment is mine. But what does that mean, it is mine? In a few years already, someone completely different could live here. It was just a lend to me. Pursuing materialistic things and trying to have as much as possible, etc., well, these are all possessions that we have to give back if we are honest. Same goes for pursuing things like all sorts of cravings, glory, fame or approval from others. Even those other people have to be left behind at one point. So if one lives with this awareness of finiteness when it comes to one's physical life, then one lives more awake and is more mindful when it comes to the meaningful values in life. What truly matters is the good. It's the love that has been lived, which, by the way, is the only thing that truly belongs to us. The truth about ourselves. Therefore, living in a way that ultimately one will be satisfied with the truth about oneself. That is a meaningful life. And then the fear of death disappears too. How can people deal with this thought that everything is coming to an end in a reasonable way? I believe it is not the right approach because people value the length of life more than the quality of life. Let's make another comparison. A movie, for example, just as you are filming it right now, is not necessarily good because of its length. It is considered good if its content is of value. It is the same with any TV movie. Is it better if it lasts for four hours rather than two? No, that doesn't matter at all. It could be an insanely boring movie that goes on for four hours. Or it could be a 15-minute long video that provides something extremely valuable. So we can see clearly that we should pay more attention to quality rather than quantity. This is indeed a mistake that some people do. They really cling to length and don't care as much about the content. So the attitude of the people really matters here. There is another beautiful comparison made by Frankel about a tear-off calendar. I am not sure whether you have read it in the book. There are these small calendars which only show one day on each paper. And every day you get to tear one page off. So today for instance it would say the 5th of October on the page and in the evening one would tear the page off and then the next day the 6th of October would appear and so forth. Now here we have two options as well. One could look at this tear-off calendar and watch it become thinner and thinner. Since those pages are being teared off daily, so it gets thinner and thinner. Especially now that we are in autumn and then by the end of December only a few pages are left until even the last one gets ripped off. Therefore one could get very sad. Or, as Frankel said, one can make a different approach. Every teared-off page can be carefully stacked on a pile and be collected in that way. On the back of each page one can write down the most beautiful moments of that particular day. What was the highlight of this day? What made this day special out of all the limited amounts of days which have been given to us? One begins to stack one page after another and the pile gets bigger and bigger. And what it does is, it reflects the treasures of life. It reflects the richness of life that has been lived. Therefore, instead of getting sad that life becomes less and less, one could look at the fullness and richness of the lived life and be grateful for the beauty one was able to experience, for the achievements one has made, for what one was allowed to witness, for that one was allowed to walk on this planet in general and to realize that was actually a wonderful gift. In fact, it is a service of love to the next generation, how one approaches one's own end or death. Children resulted out of an act of love. And they were raised in love, hopefully. And they have been lovingly released into their own life at one point. And I think that old parents are needed one last time to show their love. And that is the moment when they have aged or become sick and begin to walk up to death. Because their behavior at this stage is being carefully watched by the young. Sure, the young ones are out of the sphere of influence by that time and are independent. But that's when they look closely again. How is one's old mother or father acting once certain weaknesses appear and so on? Because as soon as they demonstrate in front of the young that this is all terrible and that this is so difficult and that they can no longer do this or that when they complain all day and demonstrate fear because of the helplessness that is coming towards them, then this very fear is being transferred to the young because the young have to walk the same path eventually. The elder ones are just the vanguard. But ultimately everyone goes this path. As a result, the young people are afraid of getting old. They don't want to become old, they don't want to look old. They are willing to do anything to stay as fit as possible because they are terrified of the end of life. And why would we want to do that to them? But if the old parent signals, look, life is worth living from the beginning to the end. There are still some meaningful opportunities to enjoy life up until old age and to still shape it a little. Even if that means that one sits somewhere calmly and thoughtfully and enjoys the beautiful sunshine. One can still do something out of life up until the end. If one can truly signal this message, then it serves as an act of love towards the younger people because then they will be able to walk in self-trust towards aging. Moreover, as an elderly person, one should make sure, out of love towards the young, to prepare betimes for getting older, to withdraw in smaller rooms, to clear things up, which belongings will be transferred to whom and so forth. Since there are lots of inheritance disputes, one should clear things up in advance and begin to distribute already instead of hoarding things which are not needed anyways. There are many things one can do for the sake of young people in order to make it easier for them. Because as soon as the parents die, it is a bereavement and a shock and loss. But when the younger ones know that their parents have been satisfied and happy with their lives up until the end and were having a good farewell with dignity, then that would be a very nice gift from the parents. I really want to emphasize this, that we should consider the younger generations as well in that process. You met Viktor Frankl pretty much 50 years ago in the fascinating variety of stimuli that his teachings offer. Is there something that has become the most important legacy for you personally? Yes, indeed. It has been exactly 50 years since I met Frankl. It was 1968 in autumn, in October to be precisely, just when the lectures begin. As I've mentioned, I have met him at the University of Vienna by coincidentally visiting one of his lectures. I was fascinated from the very start by his personality but also by his teachings. His lectures were so different from all the other psychological lectures. I can't even tell you how much. In retrospect, I can say that the most important things I've learned in my psychology study were the ones I've learned from Frankl. But if you would ask me for the quintessence, for that which has touched me the deepest, then I would say it is this speech, which Frankl used in his small theater play, which he wrote with the title Synchronization in Birkenwald. The speech came from the character Franz. They were two brothers, Franz and Paul, and it played in a concentration camp. These two innocent brothers are trapped in the camp and wait for their own death to come, so to speak. So they talk about what they would do if they somehow would get away and save their lives. And Paul said, if I would survive, I would tell the world about the gruesomeness that happened. And I would start a movement of hateful resistance. And Franz said, no, you can't do that. You can't. We cannot fight hate with hate. We must not fight violence with violence. This chain has to be broken. And it can be only broken by someone who has received hate or violence but does not pass it on. Someone who will hold it, hold it out and not pass it on. Someone who can take it, withstand it and thus break the chain. Someone like that will contribute to peace for everyone. If we repay like with like over and over again, then we will never come to peace. There is so much misery in the world. And if we give misery in return, then the misery continues. The chain, Paul, the chain must be broken. That has touched me very deeply. Professor Dr. Lucas, thank you very much for these valuable, stimulating inputs. Thank you for this conversation.