Viktor Frankl – Why To Believe In Others (video)

Viktor Frankl wrote Man’s Search For Meaning, an incredible book. Simply incredible (more on the book below). Here is a video of Frankl speaking at a conference in Toronto in 1972. It’s simple and humble, but when he made his point it was a paradigm shift for me.

Man’s Search For Meaning

From Amazon.com:

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl is among the most influential works of psychiatric literature since Freud. The book begins with a lengthy, austere, and deeply moving personal essay about Frankl’s imprisonment in Auschwitz and other concentration camps for five years, and his struggle during this time to find reasons to live. The second part of the book, called “Logotherapy in a Nutshell,”describes the psychotherapeutic method that Frankl pioneered as a result of his experiences in the concentration camps. Freud believed that sexual instincts and urges were the driving force of humanity’s life; Frankl, by contrast, believes that man’s deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. Frankl’s logotherapy, therefore, is much more compatible with Western religions than Freudian psychotherapy. This is a fascinating, sophisticated, and very human book. At times, Frankl’s personal and professional discourses merge into a style of tremendous power. “Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is,”Frankl writes. “After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.”

Self Discovery & The Enneagram: Find Out You

be who you are. the enneagram can helpI used to be a bit of a personal development nut. Through my late teens and twenties I spent an ungodly amount of time in coffee shops reading through spiritual classics, self help books, Kahlil Gibran, and The Inquirer. I also spent an even ungodlier amount of time writing in a journal… good ol’ paper and pen and writing till the answer came out.

I don’t know what I had up my butt, but I felt a good deal like the universe was some swirling mess of possibilities and I wanted to figure out what bits of it which concerned me. My dad told me at the time life doesn’t work like that, that you have to just dive into the workforce, get wet and figure things out as you go. I believe him now, but at the time there was too much magic in all the dreaming. (more…)

An unbelievably touching letter: Richard to his dead wife

My friend @jaethan turned me onto this… a letter that Richard Feynman wrote to his wife Arline who had been dead two years at the time of the writing. It was written in 1946.

It is a bludgeon and plume of hearty life, and will affect you deeply… especially if you are a husband… living in a world of distracting gadgets and careers and ideas. Read it where it was originally posted, or I’ve reprinted it below.

(more…)

Benediction For A House: A poem of sorts

It is a house, nothing more than a plot of land and a few bricks. Just a house, a roof held up by a few walls to keep the rain out. A corner of the world to warm ourselves by a little. Just a house… A place to keep things and hang pictures and park cars… A place to find space hidden away for golf clubs to cob-web and toys to be played with an forgotten and left behind.

It is just a house, except for a few subtle differences.

For one, there is a georgeous lady in this place who brings all the meaning and truth to my world. It’s because of her that I am not some miser building a house on top of a lonely hill.

Secondly, there is a small son here who finds love in me I had never known about. It is because of him that I come away from my building and storing and keeping at all.

And thirdly, there are the faces of friends. The presence of people who breathe the same life as we do… In… Out… The sounds of ease and trial and challenge and support… And love… Their presence fills this place like birds fill the empty morning; and the sounds of their glasses clinking fills me up. If it wasn’t for these people, the glass would always be half empty.

It is just a house. A plot of land, some walls and a roof. And i, i am just a man in a house. And yet because of you people… My wife, my son, our friends… I am a king and a giant in the presence of gods, and I am rich and grateful.

The Uniqueness of Humans

This? this shit here? this shit matters. (you may want to fast forward to 4:45, but the intro sets up some respect for the speaker)

A farewell lecture to the class of 2009 at stanford from Robert Sapolsky, world renowned professor of neurology, neurological sciences, neurosurgery and biological sciences. or watch at youtube: Robert Sapolsky, world renowned professor of neurology, neurological sciences, neurosurgery and biological sciences.

The Relationship Of Happiness & Ambition: huge study, short report.

I've been lucky to be a part of a worldwide study on the relationship between happiness and ambitions. Find our charty facts in the image below.


Basically, the lower your ambition the happier you are, but the more lackluster and idiot you are too. Also, these people are poor and they make their non-hippy friends uncomfortable.</p><!--more-->

<p>On the other hand, the more ambitious you are, the more succesful and acheiving you are, and the more you elude happiness, always reaching for goals and rewards. These people grow old regretting time "spent" on "too much bullshit."

This research has sparked national debate around the question: how the hell are we Americans supposed to make money AND be good at happiness?

So far the best answers have to do with starting up a company but making it "green" and "not very profitable, but a little bit."

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