Life Almost Straight

1003 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Importance of optimism

Every individual has experiences specific to their life. When these shared experiences combine, they make up the human condition. “Life almost straight” can be compared to a road, and that road represents life. The majority of life, people go down the straight road, but it would not truly be life without bumps and turns caused by the stages of the human condition. Human experiences can be vastly different, but all come together within the human condition. Each individual will experience birth, growth, emotionality, aspiration, conflict, and mortality in their lifetime. More specifically, growth can be the growth of attitude and outlook on life, conflict does not always stem from a fight between two people, and the beliefs of a person can influence …show more content…

Growth can be seeing the brighter side of a situation, even if it seems like all hope has disappeared. Growth can be the transition from feeling hopeless to having a positive outlook on life and every life experience. Victor Frankl poses a question. He asks how one can remain optimistic in the face of the “tragic triad”, consisting of pain, guilt, and death. Using Frankl’s life experience as an example, how does a Holocaust survivor remain optimistic after such a painful experience? Frankl keeps sometimes hard experiences lead people to feel empty inside, but Frankl explains that progress can be made, and progress equals growth. Finding a reason for happiness and a purpose creates growth in the mind from unhappy to happy. Frankl talks about the “existential vacuum” and feelings of emptiness, but he has a solution. Frankl talks about people that had attempted suicide, and several patients felt relieved when it had not been successful. They found an answer to their problem that gave life meaning to internal, mental growth. Growth may be one of the most important stages of the human condition. It can change people for the better as life hands them various

Show More
Related

  • Parallel Journey Quotes

    705 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness,” Desmond Tutu once said (“Desmond Tutu Quotes”). During the Holocaust, the Jews were treated very badly but some managed to stay hopeful through this horrible time. The book Parallel Journeys by Eleanor Ayer shows how Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck who had two very different stories but managed to stay hopeful. Helen was a Jew who went into hiding for awhile before being taken away from her family and being sent to a concentration camp. Alfons was a member of the Hitler Youth where he became the youngest member of the German air force. To him, Hitler was everything and he would die any day for him and his country. As for Helen, Hitler was the man ruining her life. The Holocaust was horrible to live through but some managed to survive because of the hope they contained.

    Read More

  • Hollocaust Survivor: Night by Ellie Wiesel

    678 Words  | 2 Pages

    Elie Wiesel’s speech, Hope Despair and Memory gave in 1986 mainly focused on the great importance of remembering past memories that people tend to want to forget. The speech was very successful in persuading the audience to believe in the importance that memory serves us through the great use of pathos throughout the speech, especially the pathos that always comes from any sort of holocaust recollection. Elie uses such sentences as, “a young man struggles to readjust to life. His mother, his father, his small sister are gone. He is alone. On the verge of despair.”(Abrams, 1997) He helps to arise a strong sense of sympathy from the injustices that had plagued this time in history. This use of pathos makes it an effective use of it for it underlines the audience’s attention towards Elie Wiesel and makes them closer to his emotions an...

    Read More

  • Night: Injurious Effects of Optimism

    995 Words  | 2 Pages

    Voltaire, a famous French Enlightenment philosopher, once said, “Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.” Essentially, Voltaire is saying that everything seems to be fine, but in reality it is not and never will be. Voltaire’s ideas are reflected in Elie Wiesel’s Night. In his memoir, Wiesel, his father, and a community of Jews believe that the Germans will never reach their small Transylvanian village of Sighet. However, on the third day, the Germans arrive and begin deporting Jews to an unknown location. During this period, the Jews believe that they are being sent away for their own good, but later realize it was all just an illusion. The Jews were placed into cattle wagons and were sent off on a long and horrific ride. Their final destination was Auschwitz-Birkenau. The remainder of the memoir focuses on Wiesel and his father’s struggle for survival. Wiesel’s chronicle can be read as an extended example of the effects of optimism.

    Read More

  • Night Elie

    1299 Words  | 3 Pages

    How can one keep hope in the darkest of nights? Eliezer Wiesel found and lost hope throughout his life during the Holocaust in a traumatic and heartbreaking story. The chance that he would end up in Auschwitz was beyond his control, but he quickly learned how to make decisions while in camp: keep quiet, eat the soup (even if you don’t like it), and do everything in your power to stay with who you came with. Elie wanted to believe that he could control the events happening around him, but he ended up losing his childlike view of the world in an instant. Survival was the game, anything to stay alive was the play.

    Read More

  • Elie Wiesel's Night

    1171 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...igher being, or achieving a lifetime goal. People can survive even in the most horrible of situations as long as they have hope and the will to keep fighting, but when that beacon begins to fade. They will welcome what ever ends their plight. The Holocaust is one of the greatest tragedies in human history. Elie Wiesel wrote this memoir in hopes that future generations don't forget the mistakes of the past, so that they may not repeat them in the future, even so there is still genocide happening today in places like Kosovo, Somalia, and Darfur, thousands of people losing their will to live because of the horrors they witness, if Elie Wiesel has taught us anything, it is that the human will is the weakest yet strongest of forces.

    Read More

  • Suffering in Angela's Ashes, Jane Eyre and Lord Of The Flies

    2468 Words  | 5 Pages

    ‘Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it’. This literal and realistic statement said by one who has known suffering and has dealt with it. Helen Keller experienced a traumatic time as a child; being deaf and blind, she knew suffering but also knew that it is possible for it to be conquered and forgot. She suffered in this way as a child and her adult life was a good one because of this suffering. The most important element in any child’s life is to learn and grow. Does experiencing anguish and misery enable a child to flourish, consequently becoming a nurtured adult?

    Read More

  • Viktor Frankl: Man's Search For Meaning

    717 Words  | 2 Pages

    Frankl learned from his own observations and developed the theory of Logotherapy. He observed that one particular prisoner to see how he reacts to others being punished. This helps others because it shows that anyone can understand the human mind through observation. Even though Frankl was a psychiatrist, he mainly used his observations to develop his theory. Frankl’s theory counteracts other mainstream theories such as Psychoanalytic theory. It is merely based on “meaning.” It focuses on the meaning of human existence. Frankl believes that “this striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man” (Frankl P.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Day By Elie Wiesel

    1083 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although our past is a part of who we are nowadays, we will never be happy if we can never let go of the painful feeling attached to our suffering. In addition, “suffering pulls us farther away from other human beings. It builds a wall made of cries and contempt to separate us” (Wiesel 96). We should not be afraid to let go of our haunting past and grow closer to others because “man carries his fiercest enemy within himself. Hell isn’t others. It’s ourselves” (Wiesel 15). The wise advice this book gives its audience is one reason it won a Nobel Peace Prize. The books are also part of a very famous Holocaust trilogy, which is one reason it has been so widely read. In addition, it blends everyday stories with Holocaust stories.Therefore, readers are very compassionate towards the narrator and readers create a bond with this character due to his hardships and the similarities he shares with us. Lastly, Day speaks to the needs of the human spirit by intertwining a love story. Readers wonder if his girlfriend will change his attitude towards life because he tells the doctor, “I love Kathleen. I love her with all my heart. And how can one love if at the same time one doesn’t care about life” (Wiesel

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Ten Little Indians A Spoken Indian

    1044 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is the challenges we face that make it look dark and gloomy. The key to a productive existence is not the emotions we feel when presented with adversity, but in our ability to overcome, grow and evolve. In comparison, examine the Spoken Indian searching for hope in hardships, or the extraordinary taste and smell of the wine connoisseur who lacks sight. See the trial & errors or the young man growing to love both parents, and the college student whose heart is blistering with pain from the loss of his mother, but finds healing in his new home as an emerging scholar. We are all exploring methods to handle

    Read More

  • All But My Life Figurative Language

    781 Words  | 2 Pages

    Samuel Smiles, a Scottish author and government reformer, once stated, “Hope… is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles.” Gerda Weissmann Klein, a Holocaust survivor, saw hope in people and her future of surviving. The theme in Gerda Weissmann Klein’s All But My Life illustrates how one can stay hopeful in a world full of mistreatment through the use of figurative language, internal monologue, and dialogue.

    Read More

  • man's search for meaning

    1180 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ences the individuals dealt through in the Nazi concentration camps. He writes to avoid any personal bias, as he was a prisoner himself and emphasizes the notion that man has the ability to determine what will become of his life, as he himself was able to apply this thought while living three years in captivity. His notion of finding meaning in life becomes a key factor in survival, which was ultimately able to help him and help others under his teachings, to make it out from the camps alive with a positive attitude. The need for hope, gave him a purpose to keep fighting, although others became struck down with the thought of suicide. Though Victor E. Frankl faced many difficulties and challenges while in captivity and days following his release, he comes to the ultimate realization that life will never cease to have meaning, even when under the cruelest conditions.

    Read More

  • Human Development: Erik Erikson and Daniel Levinson

    1204 Words  | 3 Pages

    In conclusion, the growing up or the two stages in life are governed totally by a series of situations, parenting, and events that affect the outcome of how the individuals will handle the changes in life. Using human intellect and determining aspects that are normal, life will be lived and a good balanced person in society will be achieved. Because every person is different and an individual, the outcome in everyone will be different. Mature people may encounter different levels of stressful situations or circumstances than younger adults. They are more practical in coping with stress and have a greater acceptance of some things in life that cannot be altered or improved, and, can easily adapt to changes that will occur in life.

    Read More

  • Viktor Frankl and his Theory of Logotherapy

    1202 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout Viktor Frankl’s life and struggles he discovered and developed his theory of logotherapy. Frankl has helped many patients find meaning in their lives by having them create a work, finding the meaning in love, or by finding the meaning behind hopeless suffering. He has helped people discover these by using different techniques like paradoxical intention, dereflexion, or Socratic dialogue. Thus, to choose one’s attitude in any circumstance allows one to choose one’s way. This saying if a man cannot find meaning in his suffering, then it is easy for him to lose hope or faith. According to Viktor Frankl, man’s deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose in one’s life.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Freud And Erikson's Theory

    1022 Words  | 3 Pages

    Urie Bronfenbrenner provided future phychologist with a bases that would easily help define these changes or stages connected you human growth. Ecological-systems approach give us the foundation

    Read More

  • Physical Development Essay

    1285 Words  | 3 Pages

    Each person’s life consists of normal stages of development; this is known as life span development. This development starts at infancy and continues through death. In each stage of development, each person experiences four types of development; physical, cognitive, social, and personality.

    Read More

More about Life Almost Straight

Open Document