An individual response to a world under siege
WHEN times get ugly, it is a survival skill to create beauty. In defiance of the grotesque, we seek ways to heal. We insist on claiming our right to dignity and belonging, fortifying ourselves first so we can support those less privileged than us.
As news broke of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine and social media began to get flooded with images of a people under siege, I turned to one of my favourite books — ‘Man’s Search For Meaning’ by Viktor Frankl — with the hope that I would find something to hold on to within its pages. How do ordinary people caught in the web of violence hold on to their humanity? What can be learnt from those who have left behind lessons from the worst of times?
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way,” wrote Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and psychotherapist who survived three years in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Dachau from 1942-45. In his celebrated psychological memoir, he reflects on extreme suffering and how the human spirit survives abject dehumanisation.
“Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become moulded into the form of the typical inmate.”
Frankl wrote about the power of love, imagination and meaning as the survival kit that gave him the emotional energy to stay alive.
The more I find myself feeling crushed under the weight of a constant stream of news about hate crimes, brutality targeted at women, minorities and underprivileged castes and the abdication of responsibility of political leaders, the more urgent it becomes to hold on to my own emotional agency as a citizen.
Another book that I keep near me at all times is ‘Emotional Literacy: Intelligence with a Heart’ by Claude Steiner. My brother and I bought this book together and I have saved it as a PDF on my desktop. I don’t read it as much as I glance at its thumbnail to remind myself to slow down, stay in touch with my feelings and prioritise love in my interactions with the rest of my world.
“Emotional literacy is love-centred emotional intelligence,” writes Steiner. “Loving (oneself and others) and being loved (by oneself and others) are the essential conditions of emotional literacy. The capacities of loving and accepting love, lost to most people, can be recovered and taught.”
Today, I brought out the orange coloured, well-leafed book from my bookshelf and dusted it again. I want to refresh my mind with the wisdom of others — those who have lived through and studied times like ours when peace is overshadowed by violence.
“After spending our childhood at the mercy of other people’s whims, we accept as natural that we should be either Victimisers or Victims, one-up to some and one-down to others, leader or follower, dominator or dominated. The slapped child becomes the parent who slaps, the child who is dominated and controlled becomes the parent who dominates and controls. We accept abuse and control power as the way of the world,” writes Steiner, inspiring the reader to defy the scripts handed down to us.
Collectively, we need to rediscover ways to resist the forces of war and civil strife. At an individual level, it becomes important for each one of us to understand the role we can play to restore the values of equity and sanity in our lives.
We hardly notice how domination works, because we are immersed in it from birth. We are all raised in cultures in which a few communities, who claim to be superior, dominate others. In India, we are witnessing this at multiple levels as couples are being violated for being in inter-faith relationships and young women are being denied the right to education and to belong to their classrooms on the basis of their covered heads in the ever-spiralling hijab row.
People who are trying to say our needs are in danger are being denied a language to express that and being forced off platforms where they have a constitutional right to express themselves. By training ourselves to be more mindful of our feelings and more aware of the nuances of the feelings of others, we gain empathy to create space for and acceptance of differences.
How can you or I make a difference when we don’t lead deeply political lives? In his best-selling book written over eight days, Frankl answers from his experience.
“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life — daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfil the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”
— The writer is a filmmaker & author.
