Victor Frankl’s Meaning in the Moment

“The world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.” - Victor Frankl

Victor Frankl was a twentieth century Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, a Holocaust survivor, and founder of the logotherapy — healing through meaning — school of psychotherapy. Dr. Frankl wrote 39 books. His most influential, Man’s Search for Meaning, is a memoir/manifesto of his time in a German concentration camp.

Why am I pondering this Jewish intellectual during the final push of our Presidential election? Because I need to take a breath from the daily rancor and consider the bigger picture of the society we have created.

Back in 2015–2016, traversing America on my bicycle, two observations about Donald Trump were abundantly clear:

First. The media made the man. Sure, Trump loves to cry ‘fake news’ and protest against the media. But each time he does, Donald Trump ensures his position as top news story. The master of consuming all the oxygen in the room — and in our country — is genius at maintaining his spot as headline of the day. The media is not President Trump’s enemy: it’s his accomplice. Actually, it’s his benefactor.

Second. The country ate up the Donald because he provided a rush of adrenalin excitement missing from most of our lives…