Book - 'Man's Search for Meaning' by Victor E. Frankl

For a good number of years, while being aware of Victor Frankl's book, I've been avoiding taking it up, in the (mistaken, as it turns our) belief that it's another one of those preachy 'self help' books full of homilies for the troubled mind, while being disjointed from realities.  Coming to know that it was by someone who survived the Nazi camps stirred some interest, but not enough to motivate me to actually read it.  Must say the loss has been entirely mine!  Getting on Audible finally led me to this gem of a (audio)book.

In my view, the unique thing about this book is that it's not based on an author's observations of others traits and behaviors, but in large part on his own life spent inside the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp, while undergoing all the travails and tortures of that life but also retaining the sanity to be an 'observer' of his own psyche and that of his co-sufferers.  The second fascinating fact (perhaps one that enabled Frankl to add to his uncompleted manuscipt while at the camp) is that he was a trained psychologist, who rose to even greater heights post his tragic incarceration, pioneered a whole new discipline (Logotheraphy, a summary of which is given in Part II of the book), and wrote a number of books.

Part I of the book, which is entirely based on Frankl's experiences at the camp, is quite a moving account.  Besides alluding to the death (nee, murder by Nazis) of his wife who entered the camp with him, he gives a first person account of the minutiae of what went on at the camp on a day-to-day basis.  The food deprivation, the overworking in trying conditions,  the forced marches amidst freezing cold and snow, the swollen feet and emaciated bodies, the diseases and deaths in thousands, the incinerators with chimneys, references to the cannibalism which broke out in the camp towards the end - everything is brought out in full detail, albeit with compassion.

Frankl doesn't flinch from bringing out the 'deals with devil' by certain co-prisoners, warders and others, who inflicted or facilitated further tortures on others just to gain temporary respite from tortures and a few 'luxuries' like cigarettes.  Amazingly, Frankl demonstrates a clear eye and unbiased attitude even while explaining the psyche of the prison guards, many of whom, as he says, were probably traumatized and inured to human emotions by being exposed continually to the barbaric goings on at the camp.

But also brought out is the potential for redemption, for a man (Frankl was placed in the male part of the camp) to rise above the circumstances and both demonstrate compassion towards others and help them in any way possible, by sharing one's own sparse food, by words and actions, by (in Frankl's case specifically) by volunteering to help in the ward of sick prisoners, which came with a real risk of infection and death.  

Through it all, Frankl continues to weave his own take on existential questions concerned with the meaning of life.  One of the themes he propounds is that it's not what is the meaning of life, but what meaning we can impart to life.  At another point, he muses whether enduring the travails of life, while preserving one's dignity and humanity, is itself the point of life.  (In this, he's perhaps close to the 'Karma' concept of Indian philosophy.)  He tells of how some prisoners, many of them motivated by Frankl himself, learned to avoid giving up on life by thinking about who or what is waiting for them after the end of war.

The book is full of such insights and life lessons, perhaps much of them taken up and popularized in later years.  Part II of the book lays out a summary of the branch of psychology which Frankl pioneered - Logotherapy, seemingly more attuned to emphasizing the patient's own choices and responsibilities rather than following the set patterns of traditional psychology.  Part II has some interesting tools and techniques, but a large part could probably be of interest mainly to psychologists, though laypersons may probably try out some of those with no harm.

A must read for those looking to understand human psyche and motivation a little better.

Book - 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' by Bill Bryson

Truth be told, I've been a fan of Carl Sagan since decades, since the time I used to watch his TV series 'Cosmos'.  I've always firmly believed Sagan to be the high priest of popular science, the one person who brought together his deep knowledge in myriad disciplines together into one cohesive narrative, ably carrying forward the legacy of European polymath scientists and mathematicians of 16th century and later.  And 'Cosmos' perhaps epitomized that ability.

But having read (or actually listened to, on Audible) 'A Short History of Nearly Everything', I'm persuaded to believe that Bill Bryson walks in Sagan's illustrious footsteps surefootedly and  with an assured voice.  Bryson's book brings together updated knowledge and perspectives on earth sciences, astronomy, core sciences including genetics, archeology and paleontology, medicine, anthropology and sociology, among other fields.  On similar lines as Sagan, but with whole new perspectives.  Perhaps the only 'Sagan-like' thing missing in this encyclopedic work is the 'leaps of inspiration' strewn throughout 'Cosmos', which many may've been tempted to dismiss as 'philosophizing', but which actually acted as the fulcrum of Sagan's arguments.  Bryson goes some way on that path towards the end, especially when ruminating on the pernicious consequences that the rise of humankind has had on the 'disappearance' of thousand of species since ancient times.  But otherwise, he revels in bringing to the reader cutting-edge knowledge on how the earth and life on it (including, lately, mankind, which has been there for only a minuscule proportion of earth's age of 4.5 billion odd years) evolved.

One theme running across the book is the huge number of occasions when one scientist discovered or invented something, and someone else ended up getting all the credit (and, lately, the Nobel that went with it).  As Bryson quotes one scientist, 'First they refute it, then they accept it, then they credit the wrong person'!  And this has been true not only of controversial cases like (allegedly misogynistic) James Watson et all being awarded the Nobel for discovering the structure of DNA, relegating Rosalind Franklin who apparently did most of the gruntwork in X-ray crystallography, and eventually died from the cancer she got while working with it and was thus could not be considered for the Nobel (which is not awarded after the passing of a person).  

But it's also happened in so many other celebrated cases like Charles Darwin being anointed the father of evolutionary theory of natural selection, even though he expounded only that it happens, not the how of it.  That work was done by the priest Gregor Mendel (it's amazing to know how many scientists and mathematicians of yore were members of the clergy!), of the famous pea plants, who got no credit for it during his prime years and eventually left the field and died unrecognized - his contribution was acknowledged only in early 20th century by another group of scientists.  The interesting story is that the detailed notes of Darwin from his HMS Beagle voyages across the world kept lying almost untouched for years, till he was motivated to write up his observations and conclusions when he got a manuscript from another scientist Alfred Wallace whose theories were too close for comfort to his own, all the time looking over this shoulders lest Church and country denounce him for even alluding that man evolved from ape!  To be fair, though, Darwin got his theory published alongside that of Wallace.

It's such stories which enliven Bryson's tome and take it to a level much beyond just the bare facts which are availably aplenty in the cloud.  And all through, while talking about evolution, Bryon cautions us that our very existence hanged by a thread and does even now, what with unimaginably powerful forces like the earth's magma chambers raring to explode as volcanoes, at such unexpected places as the Grand Canyon in US.

The other running theme is of course the multi-talented nature of many renowned scientists of those days, specialization only appearing towards the latter part of 20th century.  It seems the flowering of their mind was aided in no small measure with what such towering personalities did in their 'off time', whether it was music and arts or something else!  Alas, not only are such personalities long gone but, as a scientist tells Bryon, there is sometimes no continuity even in research into a discipline once someone working on it passes, no 'succession planning', till the field catches the fancy of the next group of scientists and, more relevant for modern times, till funding comes along, which may not happen for decades altogether.

Towards the end of the book, Bryson makes a fervent appeal for humankind to recognize the damaging effect it has had on the survival of so many species of life, from land animals to birds to amphibians to marine creatures, a process which is still continuing.  And this when hominids have been on the planet for a minuscule two million years or so, as compared to the tens of millions for which dinosaurs roamed the earth, and hundred of millions (or even billions) of years for which many other creatures including microbes have been the inhabitants of earth, and continue to be.  It's this which can perhaps be read as the overarching message of this great piece of work.