Man Is Not Fully Conditioned And Determined

What Was Really Needed Was A Fundamental Change In Our Attitude Toward Life. We Had To Learn Ourselves And, Furthermore, We Had To Teach The Despairing Men, That It Did Not Really Matter What We Expected From Life, But Rather What Life Expected From Us.

I Am Absolutely Convinced That The Gas Chambers Of Auschwitz, Treblinka, And Maidanek Were Ultimately Prepared Not In Some Ministry Or Other In Berlin, But Rather At The Desks And In The Lecture Halls Of Nihilistic Scientists And Philosophers.

I Understood How A Man Who Has Nothing Left In This World May Still Know Bliss, Be It Only For A Brief Moment, In The Contemplation Of His Beloved. In A Position Of Utter Desolation, When A Man Cannot Express Himself In Positive Action, When His Only Achievement May Consist In Enduring His Sufferings In The Right Way - An Honorable Way - In Such A Position Man Can, Through Loving Contemplation Of The Image He Carries Of His Beloved, Achieve Fulfillment.

Thus, Human Existence-at Least As Long As It Has Not Been Neurotically Distorted-is Always Directed To Something, Or Someone, Other Than Itself, Be It A Meaning To Fulfill Or Another Human Being To Encounter Lovingly.

It Is Well Known That Humor, More Than Anything Else In The Human Make-up, Can Afford An Aloofness And An Ability To Rise Above Any Situation, Even If Only For A Few Seconds.