STRANGE title this. What do you mean free others? Do you know what it is, being caged and kept in the confines of my flat? How do you expect me to free myself? A close friend of mine, sent me a note today, “Bob,” he said, “today when I went down, I noticed a radical change in people. The old smiling faces, joyous before, their trust for each other so apparent, are not there anymore! It is like the virus is responsible for this drastic despondency!”
Over seventy years ago, a world-famous neurologist, Viktor Frankl was imprisoned, nay locked down in a German concentration camp at Auschwitz. There, within the world’s worst known camp, with all the horrors of the gas chambers looming round the corner , and with unfeeling, heartless Nazis inflicting the most inhuman acts on Jewish prisoners, Frankl realized that one place no one could enter, no one could conquer was his mind.
He later wrote, ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’Here are some quotes from his book: As you go through them imagine Frankl locked down in the cruel camp, death a few feet away: ‘When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged, to change ourselves.’ ‘Everything can be taken from a man, but one thing, the last of the human freedoms-to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.’ ‘An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior’ ‘What gives light, must endure burning’
‘Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose’ ‘We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread’ ‘Man does not simply exist, but always decides what his existence will be’ What words, right? But here are key words to remember, change ourselves, choose one’s attitude, and normal behaviour! And all these giant words a few feet from death! Got it? No man, no virus, has control over you, your mind, your fate!
You are the master of your life, and this needs to be seen in everything you do or say, especially at a times when the whole world reacts with fear. Remember no German soldier, Coronavirus or anything living or dead, can take away, the peace and tranquillity you can bring to yourself! Now, just like Viktor Frankl did, go down into this fear stricken world virus camp, and let people see right away an abnormal reaction from you, to this abnormal situation, which is good, normal behaviour!
But if you want a peace beyond the NORMAL, well I can recommend a ‘Peace that Passeth Understanding’ from One above, that brings not just quiet and serenity, but a sense of joy, right here in the middle of the Coronavirus Camp..!
