The Rodney Dangerfield Factor

Manderlin's Search for Meaning Chapter 2

via herculodge.typepad.com

Comments

[jonnybardo]

I guess I should have read this one before replying to the second, as you spell out a lot of what I'm talking about.

I've been reading Frederick Douglass's autobiography with some of my students, and have taken a similar approach as what you're doing with Frankl (although they're high school students, which adds another level - they're not quite ready to "draw the sword" of their own self-empowerment). I've often thought that much of education is complete garbage and can be done by oneself, is learned naturally, that what really needs to be taught are core qualities like mindfulness (meditation), compassion, creativity, and that most crucial one of all for navigating the school of hard knocks: learning how to make lemonade out of lemons. That's similar to what Frankl is talking about, I think.

I personally don't think you need to choose between Frankl and Dangerfield/Carlin - furthermore, that you CAN'T choose, that both are who you are. But the deeper transformation that is possible, that is more "Franklesque," is fully accepting and embracing that.

Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, is--in my opinion--his most deeply philosophical work, or at least his most blatantly philosophical. Now putting aside the recent allegations, Allen seemed to embody some of this tension between the "transcendental existentialism" of Frankl, and the more cynical-nihilistic approach of Carlin and Dangerfield. Allen seemed to realize in that movie, that like as for the Taoists, the "meaning of life" is in life itself - it is its own meaning; we are the meaning.

Another "post-existential" philosopher worth checking out is Jiddu Krishnamurti.

By the way, the anecdote with the college girl is brilliant - I was really there with you. Its easy to say, "Man, what's wrong with me that she would think that?" Rather than "What's right about me that she doesn't get?" Perhaps both are true.

[jonnybardo]

One other quick one: I read the college girl part to my wife, and we were laughing at your brilliant phrase "evenly tanned guy." Ha ha. It reminds me of Louis CK complaining about "skinny dudes with big Adam's apples."

Anyhow, of the two of us, my wife and I, I am the intellectual, head-guy, but she is able to essentialize things in a way that takes me tons and tons of words. Her comment was, "At least he has a sense of humor about the whole thing."

[herculodge]

Without finding the humor in the lugubrious, life becomes insufferable. My girls' constant distractions necessitate small chapters and blog posts.