Quotes | Alison Oatman

The Meanings of Life

January 16, 2019 by Alison Oatman Leave a Comment

Live as if you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now!–Viktor Frankl

Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning belongs on a shelf with other short, powerful reads, such as Frederick Douglass’ Narrative, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, and Elie Wiesel’s Night. These are the sort of books you can read in one sitting, yet that condense an enormous amount of wisdom between their covers without wasting a single word. They put their longwinded neighbors to shame.

On rereading Frankl’s book for the first time in twenty years, I was struck by his insistence that we have three ways to discover meaning in life: by creating a work or taking an action, by experiencing something or encountering someone, and by our attitude toward unavoidable suffering. “For the meaning in life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour,” he writes. “What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.”

Therefore, there is no single “universal meaning” that we arrive at after finally breaking the code. Instead, there are multiple meanings of life–dozens, really, to suit us on our various paths and projects. And they cannot be just silly fixations, but they must take into consideration what life is asking of us and what our responsibilities are.

In our goal-driven society, it may seem that achievements are more important than relationships: Everyone is trying to be extremely useful. This is where Frankl gives the best sendup of ageism I’ve ever read: “In the past, nothing is irretrievably lost, but rather, on the contrary, everything is irrevocably stored and treasured,” he says. People tend to “overlook and forget the full granaries of the past into which they have brought the harvest of their lives: the deeds done, the loves loved, and last but not least, the sufferings they have gone through with courage and dignity.” Therefore, we should envy the elderly for their vast resources–not pity them!

I am particularly grateful to Frankl for his emphasis on the meaningfulness of suffering–“unavoidable” pain, that is, such as he faced in his years in the Nazi death camps. The way we respond to our misfortunes defines us. He quotes Rilke as saying, “How much suffering there is to get through!” Indeed, when we realize that suffering is nothing to be ashamed of and that it’s an unavoidable part of life, we come to terms with the fact that life is never going to be one big happy sunset the way it is in the movies.

A Glimpse of Things to Come?

January 10, 2018 by Alison Oatman Leave a Comment

A little over a month ago, my cousin woke me up in the middle of the night. She led me outside where the horizon was in flames. Neighbors were milling about on the street in their bathrobes. Careful not to wake her girls, I returned to my bedroom to retrieve the two most precious things inside: my cat and my computer. Then began the big wait: should we evacuate or stay put? The girls slept through the night and the adults (their parents and I) fretted away the immediate hours, and then the days, and then the weeks. Everything smelled of ash and we took to wearing surgical masks. School was cancelled indefinitely. The television anchors spoke with urgency at first and then, when the initial excitement was over, their speech patterns slackened.

I had moved to California at the beginning of October with the intentionally vague fear of earthquakes (a.k.a. The Big One).

Now, today, the rain fell with a vengeance, killing at least thirteen people in our area.

Whenever I get down about climate change and the way the planet will probably shake the human race off like a coat of fleas, I then think (like a know-it-all Buddhist) that all we ever had was the present moment anyway. What’s right here, right now.

As Milan Kundera once wrote, “There would seem to be nothing more obvious, more tangible and palpable than the present moment. And yet it eludes us completely. All the sadness of life lies in that fact.”

Amen.

Spend It, Shoot It, Play It, Lose It

August 2, 2017 by Alison Oatman Leave a Comment

And don’t, let me beg you, go with that awful tourist idea that Italy’s only a museum of antiquities and art. Love and understand the Italian people, for the people are more marvelous than the land.

…And I do believe that Italy really purifies and ennobles all who visit her. She is the school as well as the playground of the world.

–Philip Herriton in E.M. Forster’s novel “Where Angels Fear to Tread”

Philip Herriton is in desperate need of a drenching rain to strip away all of his petty niceties. In the Italian, he sees a sort of coarse, tobacco-spitting “noble savage” who awakens a keen sense of pleasure in all those who come to his shores. (It is unclear whether the cringe-worthy depictions of Italians in the book belong entirely to the author himself.) “You’re without passion; you look on life as a spectacle; you don’t enter it; you only find it funny or beautiful,” a character says to Philip at the end of the book.

I have a great quote on my fridge: “Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place. Assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?”

That’s Annie Dillard speaking. Good advice for all of us terminal patients. I think that’s what Philip means when he says Italy is both the school and the playground of the world. He means, get into the thick of it, really feel life, engage and don’t hold back. Risk discomfort for the sake of all the pleasure you can stand and at the expense of everything you think you should be doing. I say this at the risk of sounding like a bumper sticker or a greeting card. “Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time.” I think Philip only feels like himself when he is in Italy.

A Marriage to Envy

July 10, 2017 by Alison Oatman Leave a Comment

The Woolfs had a routine that seldom varied. Every morning at about nine-thirty, right after breakfast (which Leonard always served Virginia in bed), they went to their separate rooms to write. They wrote from nine-thirty until one. The Woolfs had spent so many mornings of their lives in this way that by 1934 they had written more than a score of books between them. At one, they joined each other for lunch…After lunch the Woolfs would read their mail and the newspapers. Afternoons were usually devoted to typing out and revising that morning’s work or taking care of business related to the Press. When the weather was fine (and often even when it was not), Virginia liked to include a long walk in her afternoon schedule.
–from Mitz by Sigrid Nunez

Sigrid Nunez has written a perfect little book about the Woolfs’ marmoset Mitz. Told through the eyes of this little monkey, the novel’s real focus is the Woolf household and the comings and goings of Mitz’s guardians, Virginia and Leonard. Their marriage is an extremely directed and productive union couched in much tenderness.

There are other recent examples of married writers who work in their own little hives. Poets Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon used to scribble away in adjoining rooms in their New Hampshire farmhouse. Jonathan Franzen has written about his marriage to his college sweetheart and the intense bond that allowed them to write around the clock and discuss books and ideas at all hours. (Much better than an MFA program!) And how about Sartre and Beauvoir? (Whatever that means!)

Yes, the Woolfs (or Wolves?) were privileged but also extremely fortunate to have found in each other a real partnership, like perfectly matched tennis players. You could say their daily routine was rigid and unforgiving, but there is so much freedom that comes from discipline! No, the Woolfs weren’t closing bars most nights or dancing in fountains, but they were doing something just as exciting. Even a little girl like Mitz could see that while perched on Leonard’s shoulder or sitting snug inside his waistcoat. To Mitz, these humans were as singular as they were friendly–always providing fresh worms and a chin-scratch and as much endless entertainment as the biggest show on earth.

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