Theme Of Suffering In Man's Search For Meaning

It is human nature for people to have the desire to overcome hardships and succeed in just about everything in which they participate. No matter the type of suffering or the extent of the suffering endured in whatever situation, people strive to be successful. In “The Matrix”, the characters aboard the ship suffered a great amount in order to save all of humanity from suffering under the rule of the computers, and defied all odds in order to do so. The Jewish people, about whom were written in Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl, did whatever they could to overcome their suffering in the concentration camps under the Nazi regime of the early 1940s. Avi Dalal overcame a different kind of suffering in Tel Aviv when he had to overcome

the threats of the Israeli government on his pizza restaurant in the non-fiction piece written by Ofer Golan, titled “Ever Heard of the Suffering Pizza Man? True Challenger Story.” One more person who is currently suffering and attempting to win a difficult battle is my uncle Mario, who is currently battling a tumor alongside his brain, persisting and constantly pursuing a new, healthy life. People enjoy suffering because it brings a new, exciting factor into their life; the triumph over the cause of the suffering is what brings people the most happiness.
On the contrary to what the general population would think is true for obvious reasons, people generally enjoy suffering because it makes the lives of people much more interesting.

In “The Matrix” and “Ever Heard of the Suffering Pizza Man? True Challenger Story.”, the main characters choose the path with more suffering, fully knowing the risks, benefits, and consequences of the future because those paths would add much more excitement to the lives of the main characters. In Man’s Search for Meaning and in the case of my Uncle Mario, the people are victims of forced suffering, given absolutely no choice on whether they desire to have a new, tremendous challenge to their lives or not. “The Matrix” fits into this category as well, although this form of suffering may be more difficult for the average viewer of the movie to comprehend. In “The Matrix”, Neo was given the choice of whether he wanted to suffer or not by having the option of taking the red pill or the blue pill. Neo had an idea of what the consequences would be if he chose the red pill, but Neo knew that if he chose the blue pill, he would never discover the mystery behind the red pill. Neo chose to take the risk of swallowing the red pill in order to experience everything taking the red pill had to offer, even if it meant a great amount of suffering. Neo followed typical human nature, because “as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery” (Agent Smith, Matrix). Neo longed for a new,

interesting, and exciting life experience, even if it meant that suffering was a necessary evil in order to obtain that new excitement and adventure. Neo followed human nature and chose suffering as his path to success and happiness. Another example of this choice of suffering in “The Matrix” was the choice of the entire crew of the ship that contained Morpheus and Trinity, with the exception of Cypher, to take on the computer systems that were running the world around the year 2069 or 2070 and free the human race from its possibly eternal imprisonment by the computers. Morpheus and his crew could have very easily surrendered the access codes to Zion, the only human city in existence at that time, in order to live a very easy life under the rule of the artificial intelligence, which was the path chosen by Cypher later on in the movie before he was killed by Tank. Both Neo and the crew of the ship of Morpheus chose the high risk, high reward path, very well knowing that suffering would be a large part of their lives on their journeys to success. The crew pursued liberty, not happiness; happiness ensues the achievement of liberty (Frankl).
“The Sufferer”, otherwise known as Avi Dalal, chose a similar path to that of the characters in “The Matrix”. Dalal chose to suffer in “Ever Heard of the Suffering Pizza Man? True Challenger Story.”, just as Neo, Morpheus, and the crew members of the ship of Morpheus did. Although the suffering of Dalal was very different from the suffering of the characters of
“The Matrix”, Dalal still chose to suffer in order to add more excitement to his life and fight for a greater good, just as Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, and the rest of the crew did. Dalal started a pizza restaurant named “Pizza Plaza” in Tel Aviv, which happened to be the first pizza restaurant in Israel. The start of a business is suffering within itself, especially with the low success rate of restaurants. Dalal wanted the excitement of taking the risk and suffering a bit in his life, so he decided to open a pizza restaurant, hoping it would pay off. Unfortunately for him, Dalal did not know the entirety of the risks and the amount of suffering which he would have to endure in order to make his pizza business successful. Dalal had to suffer through the daily closing orders he received from the city municipality of Tel Aviv, solely because he did not have a business permit for the operation of a pizza restaurant (Golan).The permit was only required because his was the first pizza restaurant in Israel, which was much more like a one-time tax for creating a new restaurant category. He “invented a new [restaurant] category” and “had to pay the price” (Golan). Dalal knew that this permit was unfair to his business and suffered through the constant pressure of the Tel Aviv municipality. This mere technicality caused a great deal of suffering for Dalal and his ability to help his business succeed, although it also generated a great amount of excitement in the life of Dalal. To this day, city inspectors still hound Dalal for the permit. Dalal suffered not only for his pizza business, but for the future pizza restaurants of Tel Aviv, many of which he aided in their creations by giving advice to the new owners and aiding them in their pizza creation. The type of suffering endured by Dalal was similar to the type of suffering endured by the characters in “The Matrix”. The suffering was completely optional, was for a greater good, no matter the size, and added a new excitement to the lives of everyone involved in the suffering.
The second type of suffering, which is forced suffering, still has similar effects to those of suffering by choice.

In “The Matrix”, Man’s Search for Meaning, and in the case of my uncle Mario, the suffering that they endured or are enduring was not chosen by the sufferers. Typically, humans tend to bring suffering upon themselves in order to create more excitement in their lives. Unfortunately, the lives of the aforementioned people brought an unexpected suffering upon them, and they had to or have to deal with it, whether they want to or not. In “The Matrix”, the people brought the suffering upon themselves through the creation of extremely advanced technology, although they did not purposely bring their suffering upon themselves. Even though the vast majority of people alive around 2070 in “The Matrix” did not know it, they had been suffering since before they were born, trapped for life as batteries to maintain the power system of a humongous artificial intelligence system, their minds suffering through a false life created by the artificial intelligence in order to keep the minds of the suffering people at ease. One may assume that many of these people found joy in their suffering inside the computer-generated mind world, considering the world was created based on what was considered by the artificial intelligence to be the peak of human civilization. Even people who had escaped the Matrix found joy in the artificial computer land, such as when Cypher savored an

incredible computer-generated steak at his meeting with the artificial intelligence while forming a plot to access Zion and enslave the humans as a constant energy source for all of eternity.
Another group that somehow found excitement and joy in the smallest of things was the Jews in the German concentration camps during World War II in the 1940s, which were the feature of the work of Frankl. The prisoners withstood the worst of conditions of any of the groups mentioned, suffering through horrendous living conditions set by the Nazi regime. The Jewish prisoners were worked to the bone every single day, barely received any food or water, and lived in frigid, cramped, dirty, unhealthy, and disgusting living quarters for over four years. Even these people, suffering through some of the worst possible conditions, found some joy in their everyday lives or were excited by something as horrible as being able to take the boots off of a body of a deceased man and wearing that pair of boots in order to have a higher chance of surviving until the Nazis were defeated. The Jews experienced the greatest amount of joy and excitement when they woke up in the morning. This excitement was caused by the knowledge that they had survived another day under the brutal Nazis and would have the opportunity to do so once again. The Jewish prisoners knew just as well as the American POWs in Japan that their rulers hated seeing their prisoners alive and well enough to work, which gave the two prisoner groups that much more joy in living another day. The Jewish prisoners in the text felt the most joy when the survivors finally triumphed over the Nazis, outlasting World War II and the Nazi regime in Europe. The Jews overcame some of the worst suffering suffered by any group of people during the twentieth century. Their endurance displayed “the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer,” and will to survive (Frankl). This will to survive helped them reach the end of their suffering, which led to happiness for many of the former prisoners.
One last example of this type of suffering is displayed through my uncle Mario. In May, he found out that he had a tumor in his head near his left temple that had been growing for about ten years. This news was obviously a devastating blow to my uncle, as well as my entire family. He soon learned of the contents of his future suffering and much of what he must endure for the next few months, as well as the rest of his life. Fortunately for him, he was in great physical condition before he was diagnosed with his brain tumor. He discovered he had a tumor while having a minor seizure during a Sunday bike ride with his friends. He also is not letting his tumor get in the way of him maintaining his great physical condition. Even though he is not necessarily supposed to, my uncle still goes on twenty to twenty five mile bike rides just about every day. He still works his job, supports his family, and does whatever he can to stay as healthy as possible. He does not let his suffering get in the way of finding excitement and joy in his life. He understands that “to deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human” (Mouse Matrix). He consistently overcomes his suffering in order to find excitement and joy as often as possible, which is becoming easier and easier for him to do because of the success of the Metropolitan Baseball Club of New York, which has swept the Cubs in the National League Championship Series and is now in the World Series against the Kansas City Royals.
Various types of suffering, no matter how extreme, all have the same common effects on humans. Humans endeavor for happiness and excitement in whatever ways they can in order to overcome their suffering.