It’s
funny how we can hear a concept again and again in hundreds of different
contexts without it truly sinking in. Religion waxes poetic about “free will”
all the time. Somehow, though, I never connected the power of choice with the
meaning of life. Freedom to do what we want with our spirits. Freedom to tint
our own perception. Freedom to choose whatever we can to develop our inner
selves into something we can be proud of. That is meaning. Our journey to
something More, through our pain and sorrow, developing along the way--the
opportunity to nurse our own strength, morality, spirituality, and
interpersonal relationships is what we truly live for.
It only took me nineteen years, a
healthy dose of Viktor Frankl, and this fireside chat assignment to figure out
one thing I truly believe in: the power to control one’s reaction
to circumstances, and the meaning we find in doing so. We as humans cannot control the conditions of our lives, but
we can decide how they affect us. That
is an incredible amount of power to have.
I tried to portray the importance of
choice in my fireside chat. I went through a few old journals of mine and
picked out two entries—one extremely negative one and one from the day I
finished reading “Man’s Search For Meaning”. I had a few trusted friends read my entries
out loud while I played with the volume of their voices. With a meditative 1.5htz
delta binaural beat thrumming in the background, I controlled which story I
listened to.
Watching everybody else’s projects
was both touching and humbling. I felt honored that they were willing to share
their beliefs in such vulnerable ways. This class has given us all the special
gift of an open place to share our art. Listening to everybody else’s stories
was an overwhelmingly sweet experience, and I feel so much closer to everybody
who shared.
I don’t know how my
project read to the audience. For me, however, the experience of controlling my
own stories and listening to everybody else’s combined into something very
intimately powerful. The fireside chat provided me (and, hopefully, everybody
else) with a safe space to share and apply our beliefs about the world around
us.
