Floating Monks and the French

So today in my Clinical Psychology class, my teacher comes in and we start the discussion right away. He sits up on his table. Throughout the class period he nests himself more and more firmly on top of the table, until he is sitting cross-legged completely on top of the table. I kept seeing him in my mind, floating above the class mates as he spouted off a few fleeting words of wisdom here, and a haiku there. We spent the entire two and half hours talking about Victor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning." It was quite illuminating.

He tells of his sufferings in the concentration camps, and the sufferings of many others there. The main theme of his book how different people chose to deal with suffering. He says the real measure of a man is how he handles, thinks about, and endures unavoidable suffering.

His handling of freedom and choice is what intrigues me. Many religious mental illness-equals-sin extremists have interpreted him to be saying that if a person lives well, and does what is right, they will be happy. Frankl tells about how he gained meaning and life even in the depths of the horror that is a concentration camp. Read it again folks, he gained meaning, not happiness. Sure he had an optimistic outlook compared to many other prisoners, but when you listen to him tell his story, it’s clear it was misery. He was miserable, everyone was miserable. What was fascinating to him was how simple things like a crumb of bread or tiny bit of help from the typically cruel capos were very impressive, kind, generous, even righteous, when compared to the general attitudes and situations the camp.

He never says you will be happy if you put your values above all else, he says your life will have meaning. Ultimately, that is the most important thing in this life. You can see he is not your typical existentialist, yet his is existential because he believes truth, healing, and understanding come from the living of our lives, not the analyzing of them.

So with a background established about the nature of mental illness (such as depression or addiction) that perhaps there is more to becoming healthy (and being happy) than simply choosing to do so, what does one say to those people who have snide remarks like “Just be happy! You choose your life, just do it!?” I asked the floating monk in my mind (my teacher in real life) just this questions, with some psychological jargon/mumbo-jumbo every few words to make sure no one realized I was actually asking a practical question that had to do with my own life. The answer was something like this.

“Well, why don’t you just choose to be in France right now!? Go ahead.” Someone can’t choose to be in France any more than they can choose to be happy. Does that mean we are all lost and doomed to whatever linear causal-fate chain has brought us to this point? No, we really can change our lives by choosing to do so, but when someone is clinically ill, it’s more like making a voyage to France than just “turning yourself around.” It takes preparation, it takes effort, sometimes money, and more than anything, it takes time.

Now, I don’t want to undermine the power of our will, but we must realize our freedom and agency do not mean we are all-powerful – choice is bound by context. Ever played a tabletop Role Playing Game? Believe it or not, we can learn by a simple example from this pinnacle of geekdom. You have the choice to try anything you want, but once you try to jump off that cliff and fly away, you’ll realize you don’t really have the choice to fly. If you had wings, if you had a flying carpet, if you had a hang-glider, sure, but that’s just what I mean by limited by our context. I can choose to be in France all the time, when I’m in France.

I’m hungry, anyone want to come to McDonald’s and get some Freedom Fries? Or is that out of fashion already?