Tag: Viktor Frankl

Friendship and Fraternity

At work or at home, we relate to a network of people e.g. parents, siblings, neighbors and co-workers.

Now, on top of that, we got our online reputation to build and keep up. It’s the new currency. Trust and transparency.

Amazon and Facebook model are built on that. Delivering what we are promised, on time and every time.

On Social, we live the illusion of grandeur, having connected with many virtual friends, but having no real and close friends.

The key lies in your emotional intelligence and empathy.

Judge not.

The passing-away of my parents left a vacuum hard to fill. Now, I am like Eric Carmen “All by myself” or  Kazuo Ishiguro‘s “When we were orphans“.

I realize I lost more than a set of parents. I lost my two best friends. Friends who cheer me up when I am down. Talk me down when I was way over my head.

You can’t get that online, or ordering it on Amazon.

Then there were friends at work. All of the sudden, when you are out of work, you lost pension and insurance. You lost a set of friends.

Each of us moved on. Some to better positions. Others worse

But the pain remains: we will never get back together, like the Beatles.

Women problems at work are now a popular conversation with Sheryl Sandberg‘s “Lean in”.

But when one is out of work, nobody sings “Stand by me”.

Or, “That’s what friends are for”.

So we keep connecting, liking and commenting.

TED keeps coming up with cerebral lectures to motivate us. Bill Gates with new products that save the world.

But deep down, we all know that people are hurt by this economy. The pain and avoidance of pain take on subtle forms: alcoholism, passive-aggressive behavior and withdrawal.

In other words, what happened out there finally affects what’s in here.

By severing our lifeline, those intangible values of friendship and fraternity, the powers that be have failed to calculate and factor in those hidden costs. That which injures people, set them back and de-motivating. Smart people have moved on to better things taking a page from a different playbook. But those of us who thrive in togetherness and inter-connectedness can never stay whole. Something is missing. Somebody is not showing up at the Thanksgiving table. Then those defensive mechanisms kick in, to explain away someone’s absence e.g. demonizing the person, writing them off as “weird” or “mal-adjusted”. Yes, nature favors those who are the fittest. Wait until nature calls on you.

Meanwhile, I feel like tripping over on some neural minefield. I know we are not dispensable like yesterday’s version of Nokia. But somehow, the hidden costs of industrialization e.g. planned obsolescence and disposable society, have taken a toll on all of us. Starting with some line items on Excel down to our co-workers, then friends and families. It’s easy to connect with thousand friends on Facebook than talking to your parents who know you better than anyone else. I envy those who can “bounce it off” their parents on choices for a career or a mate. It’s necessary and it’s human. We pass on our DNA and our stored experience. As Viktor Frankl puts it ” they can take away my body, but not me who resides in this body”. Our genes pass on, but while we “do time”, we cherish those encounters and engagement with friends. Just a few laughs. Passing the time and not judgment. Seeing the world as if we were they.

I miss my parents this Thanksgiving. They were my best friends who passed on the appreciation for poems and patience with people.

I didn’t realize then, that I was born into a fraternity, where friends cared. That’s what they are for, in good times and bad times.

What’s your tale? Where will you be this Thanksgiving? In it’s origin, it’s a simple meal of wild turkey among early settlers and native American. Friendship was fostered and trust built. A nation was born and decisions were made. Gut check and gut call. True-North alignment to create and grow a nation where all men (fraternity) are born to pursue happiness among them (friendship).

Human spirit as Motivator

Papillon is a real-life recount of  an undefeated spirit. Viktor Frankl talks about “they can take my body but not the spirit that is in me”.

In war, down the trenches, with bullets zipping by, what causes a man to stay put?

No greater love than a man who lays down his life for a friend. Comradeship.

Mike Murphy, a SEAL, a Penn Stater, went out in the clear for better wireless signals, knowingly sacrificed his life to save his troop.

Human spirits.

Higher purpose.

Maslow perhaps touched on this by naming it “self-actualization“.

In War and Peace, we read about the Russian army defended Motherland after Napoleon had burned down Moscow.

Wounded bodies, but not spirits.

United Flight 93 passengers decided in split seconds to go down in style.

In 300, the movie, their leader retorts that (when aides brought up bad news that the enemies’ arrows would rain down and cover the sky) “good, we will fight in the shade then”.

Human spirits.

Each man’s history tends to condense in those few decisive turns.

Shun not the confluence of events.

In crisis, show confidence and judgement. When it’s 50-50 split, throw in the human spirit. The tie-breaker.

The quant could never factor this quality on their spread sheets.

They aren’t trained to identify much less put a dollar value on it.

But since time began, we know it exists. One more (aerobic) step, one more cold call (Colonel Sanders), one more pregnancy unaborted.

The Vietnamese eat from a common rice pot. There is always one extra bowl and a pair of chopsticks just in case.

I was at RockStorm last night (stadium concert). The other numbers were OK.

But when Noi Vong Tay Lon (Let’s join hands) was up, I heard a loud chorus “the wild is calling us to rejoin disparaged shores”. Old wine in new skins. The spirit of unity expressed in new genre (rock was first associated with individuality and independence).

In Hotel California, we hear that “we haven’t had that spirit since 1969”.

Human spirit.

Tell me it did not exist, too intangible, hard to pin down.

I will tell you history is made of exactly that, whether or not historians could pin it down. That which is unseen is stronger than that which is seen.