Man's Search For Meaning

 I went to bed at 2AM, and woke up at 6 or 6:30. That's weird because that's only about 4-4.5 hours of sleep. Well, I was going to take it easy today anyway. 

I read two books; Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad and Man's Search For Meaning, the one I'd just picked up from the Amazon hub, by Viktor Frankl. 

Lord Jim was pretty good. It's a pretty long read, and starts out with Jim being a promising young man but kind of a doofus. But over the various chapters of his life he matures and in the end he's become just about purely good and dies nobly. 

Man's Search For Meaning is a book I keep hearing about especially lately. It was well worth buying new. I always was given the impression that Dr. Frankl came to his conclusions because of his being put through the wringer in various Nazi camps in WWII. But in reality, he'd already formulated his theories years before going into the camps, working as a psychiatrist at a public hospital treating something like 3000 patients a year. Old men and housewives and hard-cases from WWII and students, lots and lots of students, were suicidal and were seen by him. 

The concentration camps only provided further proof of his line of thought, and since he already had come up with the basic tools he was able to help people in the camps (when he was trying not to die, himself). 

His school of thought, Logotherapy, is considered the 3rd school of psychotherapy. Freud believed life was all about the pursuit of pleasure. Adler, of the other main branch, believed life was about acquiring power. Frankl's conclusion was that life was about the pursuit of meaning. I have to agree. People who just chase pleasure are often not very happy and it leads to an awful society. Pursuit of power if anything is worse, leading to things like North Korea and the Third Reich. But pursuit of meaning, works. It accounts for how you could have very unhappy members of royalty and happy and satisfied chippers of marble building Middle Ages cathedrals. Or our present-day success stories, movie stars and various elite killing themselves off with drugs while there are plenty of very happy poor people around. 

I got the book because I thought it might have a message for me, and it does. I think I fell so far into drinking again because I kept thinking about how working for Ken doesn't have that much meaning for me. It's just survival. And I'd drink to get away from the despair I felt. Of course the alcohol made the despair worse because when drinking it's especially easy to while away hours online when I'm scheduled to actually get some work done - making myself feel cramped for time. And I think I fell into something like Frankl observed among fellow camp inmates, where when they give up, they deteriorate really quickly. 

For the longest time I figured my meaning would be to learn to play the trumpet really well. I sure put in some work on that thing and just before covid hit I was getting good enough to make some decent money. I was entertaining the thought of saving up to rent a small office I could live in, and just play trumpet around this area. No more eBay, no more electronics, just play that horn. 

So when covid hit I figured, Fine, I'll "woodshed" and get conversant in notes above high C. And by Jove, I did it. I had a purpose. I had my range exercises every night. But I realized, as I got up there, that it's a lot of work and it can be precarious in that sometimes there are bad days and one doesn't know why. Also the condition of one's lips is a huge factor - one little dry place and there goes that nice tone. But another thing I realized is I don't have the theory and valving drills that ideally I'd have done through high school. People look at a player like Chet Baker and think he's "instinctive" which is the opposite of what he was. He grew up in school bands, then was in Army bands, then played bebop which is very theoretical stuff. You have to learn this stuff when you're young, like learning a language natively. 

But I give myself an A for effort; it's not everyone who picks up a trumpet in their 40s and gets as far as I did. And it taught me how to put in regular practice. 

And that's what made me decide to try "playing" my voice. Singing's something I've done since I can remember, so I've done that critical learning at an early age. That's where I came up with my plan to try training my voice for a year; just give it a year and see where I end up. And as I keep writing, it's been going pretty well in spite of myself. 

And I think I've got a real corner on the game because I think I have a "voice". Frankly I think I sound like my dad, who sounded like Frank Sinatra. Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Tony Bennett are my Holy Trinity of singing but there are other great ones too. And I sound pretty close to them now and with some work I think I could get to sound really like them. Should have started 20 years ago but 20 years ago I thought they were kind of hokey. 

I'm really glad my dad passed me down his voice. The thing I don't get is, did the guy do voice training and just never said anything about it? He'd have been a shoo-in to go on the radio or be a TV announcer. The only time I ever heard him sing was when I was a little and he was teaching me the canon of little-kid songs and getting such a big kick out of it. I know he hung out with a radio guy in Hawaii, Uncle Mikey Eisenstadt, and maybe was trying to break into the radio business but the radio market in Hawaii's pretty small. 

But I should really feel thankful for the guy. He passed down to my older sister her high school education at Punahou which is a big deal in Hawaii. And he helped my older brother get a job at Grumman. And he passed me down a voice. The others aren't really musical or singers at all. I'm the one who got the voice. I think if I can develop it, I'm going to feel I got the best gift from him.

In many cases people really want to sing, and are musical and still didn't get the gift of a voice. I've been watching things on YouTube about a quirky musical semi-genius named Danial Johnston who wrote tons of songs that are just a level below Beach Boys or Beatles stuff and he performs them, and the poor guy had an awful voice. So I should really be thankful. 

So that might be a pretty good Meaning for my life. To take my dad's voice back to Hawaii in a few years (maybe sooner if Rumpo gets his 2nd term) and show that I've gotten over my resentments against the guy and against Hawaii. To be as positive as I was negative in my mid-20s when I left. 

It was wet and cold outside today so needless to say I stayed in. And it'll be the same tomorrow so I'll stay in tomorrow, too.  

At least the cut on my hand is almost completely healed now. I think it was actually infected so last night I washed it many times with Dettol and that cleaned the infection up.