Viktor Frankl on humor as a lifeline to sanity and survival, Ben Folds on creativity, empathy, and the courage to know yourself, vintage science art

NOTE: This newsletter might be cut short by your email program. [View it in full](.  If a friend forwarded it to you and you'd like your very own newsletter, [subscribe here]( — it's free.  Need to modify your subscription? You can [change your email address]( or [unsubscribe](. [Brain Pickings]( [Welcome] Dear {NAME}, welcome to this week's edition of the [brainpickings.org]( newsletter by Maria Popova. If you missed last week's digest — an illustrated ode to wonder and our consanguinity with the universe, Amanda Palmer reads Wendell Berry's poignant protest against injustice, and more — you can catch up [right here](. And if you are enjoying this labor of love, please consider supporting it with a [donation]( – I spend innumerable hours and tremendous resources on it each week, and every little bit of support helps enormously. If you already donate: THANK YOU. [Viktor Frankl on Humor as a Lifeline to Sanity and Survival]( [viktorfrankl_searchformeaning.jpg?zoom=2&w=680]( one is considering the universe,” Ella Frances Sanders observed in her [lovely illustrated celebration of wonder]( “it is important, sensible even, to try and find some balance between laughter and uncontrollable weeping.” Somehow, on our tiny beautiful planet adrift in a vast unfeeling universe, we have managed to create myriad causes for weeping. “Our life has become so mechanized and electronified,” the Hungarian journalist and László Feleki [wrote with astounding prescience]( half a century ago, “that one needs some kind of an elixir to make it bearable at all. And what is this elixir if not humor?” Mechanization is but one way to dehumanize life, but there are others, grimmer, far worthier of weeping and more savaging of sanity. Even in the face of those — or perhaps especially in the face of those — the ability to laugh stands as a vital protection of sanity and a mighty form of resistance to inhumanity. That is what the great Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl (March 26, 1905–September 2, 1997) attests to in his extraordinary 1946 psychological memoir [Man’s Search for Meaning]( ([public library]( — one of the profoundest and most vitalizing books ever written, abounding with wisdom on [how to persevere through the darkest times]( and [what it means to live with presence](. [viktorfrankl.jpg?resize=680%2C453] Viktor Frankl Reflecting on the inner acts of rebellion by which prisoners maintained their dignity, sanity, and zest for life in the concentration camp — making art in secret, [reading smuggled books]( — Frankl writes: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation. 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. He recounts how he awakened a friend to the life-saving value of humor — an acquired skill, like any art — through what is essentially a disciplined implementation of creative prompts: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]I practically trained a friend of mine who worked next to me on the building site to develop a sense of humor. I suggested to him that we would promise each other to invent at least one amusing story daily, about some incident that could happen one day after our liberation. He was a surgeon and had been an assistant on the staff of a large hospital. So I once tried to get him to smile by describing to him how he would be unable to lose the habits of camp life when he returned to his former work. On the building site (especially when the supervisor made his tour of inspection) the foreman encouraged us to work faster by shouting: “Action! Action!” I told my friend, “One day you will be back in the operating room, performing a big abdominal operation. Suddenly an orderly will rush in announcing the arrival of the senior surgeon by shouting, ‘Action! Action!’” [jeromebyheart7.jpg] Art by Olivier Tallec from [Jerome by Heart]( by Thomas Scotto. Telescoping from the particular to the universal, Frankl considers how his experience in the concentration camp illuminates a broader consolation for the human struggle: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living. Yet it is possible to practice the art of living even in a concentration camp, although suffering is omnipresent. To find humor in the grimmest of circumstances is not only a survival tool but a supreme act of creativity and an assertion of the most unassailable personal liberty. Frankl writes: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. […] It is this spiritual freedom — which cannot be taken away — that makes life meaningful and purposeful. An active life serves the purpose of giving man the opportunity to realize values in creative work, while a passive life of enjoyment affords him the opportunity to obtain fulfillment in experiencing beauty, art, or nature. But there is also purpose in that life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man’s attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. Complement the indispensable [Man’s Search for Meaning]( with Frankl on [seeing the best in each other]( — another triumph of creativity and spiritual strength — and the great humanistic philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm on [the art of living]( then revisit the Polish painter Józef Czapski on [how Proust saved his soul in a Soviet labor camp]( Holocaust survivor Helen Fagin on [how one book saved young women’s lives]( and the [stirring letter on suffering and transcendence]( Oscar Wilde penned in prison. [Forward to a friend]( Online]( [Like on Facebook]( donating=loving I pour tremendous time, thought, heart, and resources into Brain Pickings, which remains free and ad-free, and is made possible by patronage. If you find any joy, stimulation, and consolation in my labor of love, please consider supporting it with a donation. And if you already donate, from the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU. monthly donation You can become a Sustaining Patron with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a Brooklyn lunch.  one-time donation Or you can become a Spontaneous Supporter with a one-time donation in any amount. [Start Now](  [Give Now]( [How Nature Works, in Stunning Psychedelic Illustrations of Scientific Processes and Phenomena from a 19th-Century French Physics Textbook]( A century before the trailblazing photographer Berenice Abbott created her [arresting visualizations of scientific processes and phenomena]( the French mathematician, science writer, and liberal journalist Amédée Guillemin (July 5, 1826–January 2, 1893) enlisted gifted artists in illustrating his wildly popular science books. In consonance with the pioneering 19th-century information designer Emma Willard’s conviction that knowledge is most readily received when [“addressed to the eye,”]( Guillemin understood that the fundamental laws of nature appear too remote and slippery to the human mind. To make them comprehensible, he had to make their elegant abstract mathematics tangible and captivating for the eye. He had to make physics beautiful. [4.jpg?resize=680%2C993] Light distribution on soap bubble from Le monde physique. Available [as a print](. Although Guillemin published prolifically on many distinct scientific subjects — the the Sun and the Moon, volcanoes and earthquakes, railways and the telephone, the nature of sound and light — his magnum opus was the comprehensive 1868 physics textbook Les phénomènes de la physique, which became the backbone of his five-volume 1882 popular encyclopedia Le monde physique, or The Physical World. Featuring 31 colored lithographs, 80 black-and-white plates, and 2,012 illustrated diagrams, the encyclopedia owes much of its success to this beguiling visual presentation of the processes and phenomena Guillemin elucidates: gravity, sound, light, heat, magnetism, electricity, meteors. [doublerainbow.jpg?resize=680%2C473] “Rainbow double refraction, reflection and scattering of light inside raindrops” from Les phénomènes de la physique. Wellcome Collection. Available [as a print](. The most arresting illustrations, many of them preserved by the [Wellcome Collection]( were done by the Parisian intaglio printer and engraver René Henri Digeon, based on sketches by the physicist Jean Thiébault Silbermann, who made the first measurements in thermochemistry. [3.jpg?resize=680%2C1005] Crystals exhibiting interference of color, from Le monde physique. Available [as a print](. [9.jpg?resize=680%2C1027] “Monochromatic fringes” from Le monde physique. Available [as a print](. [1.jpg?resize=680%2C1083] “Polychromatic fringes” from Le monde physique. Wellcome Collection. Available [as a print](. Reminiscent of Goethe’s [graphically daring diagrams of color perception]( the psychedelic images depict the spectral distribution of color and the behavior of light as it passes through various materials, ranging from a bird’s feather to a tourmaline-coated crystal. [spectra.jpg?resize=680%2C453] “Spectra of various light sources, solar, stellar, metallic, gaseous, electric” from Les phénomènes de la physique. Wellcome Collection. Available [as a print](. [colorwheel.jpg?resize=680%2C1045] Color wheel based on the classification system of the French chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul, from Les phénomènes de la physique. Wellcome Collection. Available [as a print](. [colors.jpg?resize=680%2C1047] Color scale from violet to yellow, from Les phénomènes de la physique. Wellcome Collection. Available [as a print](. Said to have inspired Jules Verne, Les phénomènes de la physique enchanted masses of lay readers and modeled for generations of scientists an engaging new way of presenting their work. On the borderline between these two worlds stood the scientifically voracious but formally untrained Winifred Lockyear, wife of Norman Lockyear — the world’s first professor of astrophysics, discoverer of helium, and founder of the journal Nature. In the final years of her life, Lockyear set about translating Guillemin’s masterwork. It was published in 1877 under the title [The Forces of Nature: a Popular Introduction to the Study of Physical Phenomena]( ([public domain]( — her legacy to the English-speaking world. Lockyear took especial care to preserve Guillemin’s spellbinding prose. True to the expository sensibility of his century and to the great literary tradition of his country, he approached his science books with a philosopher-poet’s sensitivity to the underlying human hungers driving our search for knowledge. He writes in the preface: . [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]From time immemorial the mind of man has felt a strong desire to fathom the laws which govern the various phenomena of Nature, and to understand her in her most secret work in short, to make itself master of her forces, in order to render them as useful to material as to intellectual and moral life; such is the noble undertaking to which the greatest minds have devoted themselves. For too long did man wander in this eager and often dangerous pursuit of truth: beginning with fanciful interpretations in his infancy, he by degrees substituted hypothesis for fable; and then, at length, understanding the true method, that of experimental observation, he has been able, after innumerable efforts, to give in imperishable formulae, the most general idea of the principal phenomena of the physical world. [auroraborealis.jpg?resize=680%2C526] Polar aurora borealis, observed on January 19, 1839, from The Forces of Nature. Available [as a print](. Half a century after Schopenhauer contemplated [the essential difference between how art and science illuminate the world]( Guillemin subverts the common stereotype of art belonging to the passions and science to the cold intellect, and adds: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]In order thus to place itself in communion with Nature, our intelligence draws from two springs, both bright and pure, and equally fruitful — Art and Science: but it is by different, we may say even by opposite, methods that these springs at which man may satisfy his thirst for the ideals, which constitute his nobleness and greatness, the love of the beautiful, truth and justice, have been reached. The artist abstains from dulling the brilliancy of his impressions by a cold analysis; the man of science, on the contrary, in presence of Nature, endeavours only to strip off the magnificent and poetical surroundings, to dissect it, so to speak, in order to dive into all the hidden secrets ; but his enjoyment is not less than that of the artist, when he has succeeded in reconstructing, in its intelligible whole, this world of phenomena of which his power of abstraction has enabled him to investigate the laws. We must not seek then in the study of physical phenomena, from a purely scientific point of view, the fascination of poetical or picturesque description; on the other hand, such a study is eminently fit to satisfy that invincible tendency of our minds, which urges us on to understand the reason of things — that fatality which dominates us, but which it is possible for us to make use of to the free and legitimate satisfaction of our faculties. [rapine1.jpg?resize=680%2C539] “Electrical light in rarefied gas” from Les phénomènes de la physique. Wellcome Collection. Available [as a print](. [snowflakes1.jpg?resize=680%2C1015] “Forms of snow crystals” from The Forces of Nature. Available [as a print](. [11.jpg?resize=680%2C451] “Forms of electric discharges” from The Forces of Nature. Available [as a print](. Complement with French artist and astronomer Étienne Léopold Trouvelot’s [stunning astronomical drawings]( from the same era and Goethe’s [theory of color and emotion]( conceived half a century earlier, then revisit artist Vivian Torrence’s [enchanting depictions of scientific phenomena]( created a century later. HT [Public Domain Review]( [Forward to a friend]( Online]( [Like on Facebook]( [How to Find Your Artistic Voice: Ben Folds on Empathy, Creativity, and the Courage to Know Yourself]( [lightningbugs_benfolds.jpg?fit=320%2C486]( “The best that can be said of my life so far is that it has been industrious, and the best that can be said of me is that I have not pretended to what I was not,” the astronomer Maria Mitchell wrote in her diary at the apogee of her improbable and pathbreaking career as she was [reflecting on the art of finding one’s purpose](. A century later, in his wonderful [advice to young artists]( E.E. Cummings offered: “To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.” This, of course, is the perennial battle of every creative person in any field — what James {NAME} called [“the artist’s struggle for integrity”]( — and it has played out again and again on the scale of generations and civilizations, fought by every visionary creator, from Sappho and Shakespeare to Cummings and {NAME}. It is a battle won only with the courage to create rather than cater, to unflaggingly buoy one’s singular vision and sensibility against the billowing tide of convention and conformity. And so, in any body of work marked by true originality, creativity and courage are inextricably linked — for creativity without courage dissolves into fruitless daydreaming, and courage without creativity festers into the most insufferable hubris. All of that, and so much more, is what musician [Ben Folds]( — an artist of convention-breaking vision and unrelenting creative courage — explores in his lovely memoir, [A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons]( ([public library]( which radiates his goofy, brilliant, genuine, deeply empathetic spirit, marked by the kind of amiable self-consciousness with which unboastful genius often shades itself from the harsh stage-glare of attention. Even the title bespeaks Folds’s disarming self-deprecation, which makes the book so pleasurable and uncontrived: The lessons, of course, are not cheap — they are costly learnings from innumerable tribulations, relayed with unselfconscious sincerity and ample humor; they are the un-autotuned record of hard-earned, messy triumphs of maturity and artistic integrity; they are the life-tested, vitalizing assurance that such triumphs await anyone talented enough and willing enough to risk humiliation, heartbreak, poverty, endless toil, and repeated rejection by the establishment for the sake of turning an improbable vision into something that changes the artistic landscape of reality. [whatif12.jpg] Art by Olivier Tallec from [What If…]( by Thierry Lenain In the tradition of visionaries relaying a symbolic childhood experience that illuminated their creative path — Pablo Neruda and [the hand through the fence]( Albert Einstein and [the compass]( Patti Smith and [the swan with the blue sail]( — Folds opens with the first dream he remembers, dreamt when he was three: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]It was set in one of those humid Southern dusks I knew as a kid. The kind of night where I’d look forward to the underside of the pillow cooling off, so I could turn it over and get something fresher to rest my head on for a good minute or so. The old folks described this sort of weather as “close.” In my dream, a group of kids and I were playing in the backyard of my family’s home in Greensboro, North Carolina. Fireflies — “lightnin’ bugs,” as the same old folks called them — lit up in a dazzling succession and sparkled around the backyard. Somehow, I was the only one who could see these lightnin’ bugs, but if I pointed them out, or caught them in a jar, then the others got to see them too. And it made them happy. This was one of those movie-like dreams and I recall one broad, out-of-body shot panning past a silhouetted herd of children, with me out in front. There was joyous laughter and a burnt sienna sky dotted with flickering insects that no one else could see until I showed them. And I remember another, tighter shot of children’s faces lighting up as I handed them glowing jars with fireflies I’d captured for them. I felt needed and talented at something. […] At its most basic, making art is about following what’s luminous to you and putting it in a jar, to share with others. [Velocity_Hilts.jpg?resize=680%2C887] Art by the Brothers Hilts from [A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader](. Artists, Folds reflects, are as obsessed with the pursuit of luminosity as they are animated by the irrepressible impulse to share the light with others — a testament to Annie Dillard’s insistence that [a generosity of spirit is the mightiest animating force of art](. He writes: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]As we speed past moments in a day, we want to give form to what we feel, what was obvious but got lost in the shuffle. We want to know that someone else noticed that shape we suspected was hovering just beyond our periphery. And we want that shape, that flicker of shared life experience, captured in a bottle, playing up on a big screen, gracing our living room wall, or singing to us from a speaker. It reminds us where we have been, what we have felt, who we are, and why we are here. We all see something blinking in the sky at some point, but it’s a damn lot of work to put it in the bottle. Maybe that’s why only some of us become artists. Because we’re obsessive enough, idealistic enough, disciplined enough, or childish enough to wade through whatever is necessary, dedicating life to the search for these elusive flickers, above all else. [flashlight_liziboyd5.jpg] Art from [Flashlight]( by Lizi Boyd Artists, he argues, are not inventors but uncoverers of truth and beauty — people who “point out things that were always there, always dotting the sky,” making them visible for all to delight in. He adds: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]My job is to see what’s blinking out of the darkness and to sharpen the skill required to put it in a jar for others to see. Those long hours of practice, the boring scales, the wading through melodies that are dead behind the eyes in search of the ones with heartbeats. And all that demoralizing failure along the way. The criticism from within, and from others, and all the unglamorous stuff that goes along with the mastering of a craft. It’s all for that one moment of seeing a jar light up a face. But for Folds, born into a working-class family in the South, where it was far more common and condoned to become a contractor than a composer, the creative spark might have been extinguished early on, were it not for his mother. Having grown up in an orphanage and marked by a rebellious creative streak of her own, she became “a defense attorney of sorts” for her son’s intense creative leanings. An unusual child, obsessed with music and astronomy, hyper-focused and unable to cope with interruption, young Ben was spending eight hours a day blissfully splayed before the record player, absorbing every note. His grandmother found this supremely worrisome and sent for a child psychologist, who deemed Ben developmentally challenged and recommended that he be held back a year or two in school. His mother flatly dismissed the diagnosis, sensing an uncommon gift in her child. Instead, she let him spend his days at the record player, began reading to him every night for years, and started him in first grade a year early. Folds reflects: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]She saw my flunking of the doctor’s test as proof of my imagination. I reminded her of herself. [benfolds_young.jpg?resize=680%2C690] Ben, age 6, at his turntable, with his brother. His childhood brought other lessons from everyday life that would later ferment into the essence of his artistic ethos. Peppering the politeness-culture of the South were some bigots of especially deplorable caliber, whom Folds could barely stomach encountering. But those encounters became testing ground for the greatest mark of the artist — empathy. (Lest we forget, the word “empathy” only entered the modern lexicon [a century ago]( to describe the imaginative act of projecting oneself into a work of art.) A generation after Carl Sagan considered [what it takes to move beyond us vs. them and bridge conviction with compassion]( Folds writes: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]By dignifying even the most despicable character as a human being, by offering them what empathy we can manage, we also hold them accountable for their choices. You can’t really convincingly condemn a monster for being a monster. He’s just being the best monster he can be. Sure, it’s easier to make a caricature of someone you don’t want to relate to, but the more lines you can step over, the closer you can get to a subject, the better off you’ll be — and the more complex and effective your songwriting will be. From the filthy rich to the filthy minded, I learned to meet people one at a time. Folds reflects on this lesson, which later shaped his songwriting: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]Stand in as many pairs of shoes as you can manage, even ones you consider reprehensible or repulsive — even if it’s just for a moment. If you’re going to be a tourist, be a respectful one. Observe, report, imagine, invent, have fun with, but never write “down” to a character or their point of view, because everyone is the most important person in the world — at least to that one person… Position yourself upon a bedrock of honesty and self-knowledge, so that your writing comes from your own unique perspective. Know where you stand and what your flaws are. Know thyself. Then you can spin all kinds of shit and all the tall tales you like. It’s art. Finally, empathy and perspective are everything, and neither should be taken for granted. After all, there’s always someone out there who thinks you’re the monster. Remember that the ground beneath your feet can always shift and that it should always be questioned. [artyoung_treesatnight3.jpg?resize=680%2C1056] Art from [Trees at Night]( by Art Young, 1927. This question of how to anchor oneself firmly to the “bedrock of honesty and self-knowledge” is fundamental to the quest for finding one’s creative purpose and direction, or what Folds calls “artistic voice.” He writes: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]By artistic voice, I’m referring to one’s artistic thumbprint — the idiosyncratic stuff that makes an artist unique. It’s not a precise science, and finding it is always a painful process. I think it has to be about subtraction. It’s not a matter of cooking up a persona or style so much as it is stripping away what’s covering up the essence, what was already there. In consonance with the great neurologist Oliver Sacks’s insight into [the crucial role of imitation in the development of originality]( Folds writes: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]Sometimes it’s just growing out of the imitation phase. Most artists have a period where they sound like their favorite musician, and once they’ve learned from that they can shed that effort. Sometimes the subtraction is about casting off a misconception about how music is actually performed, or how art is made. No matter what your particular subtraction is, the artistic voice you will discover will ideally be something you haven’t seen or heard before. [arthurrackham_grimm7.jpg?resize=680%2C954] One of Arthur Rackham’s [rare 1917 illustrations]( for the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm Echoing Nietzsche’s insistence that [“no one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life,”]( Folds adds: [2e292385-dc1c-4cfe-b95e-845f6f98c2ec.png]That impossible search for the voice is, in the end, about being yourself. It’s self-honesty. And in those moments that the artistic voice shows its face, it’s hard to imagine what was so difficult about finding it. But it is difficult getting there. Added to the challenge of looking for something for which you have no prior example, once you find it, you’re the only one who will never truly see what’s special about it. What an artist has to offer is obvious to just about anyone else but the artist him- or herself. It’s not terribly profound or abstract to say that the way we hear our speaking voice, reverberating in our own skull, is not the way we sound to others. We never get a chance to meet ourselves the way others have. It’s the same with the artistic voice. It’s something you feel in the dark. [A Dream About Lightning Bugs]( is a delightful read in its entirety, drawing on elements of Folds’s life — the unbidden generosity of a piano elder who spotted rare talent in a teenage rascal, the innumerable stupidies of young love, the perspective-calibrating birth of his children, near-death experiences involving an airplane, a mugging, and a dental catastrophe — to glean rich, unpontifically offered lessons on the life of art and the art of life. (The [audiobook]( is especially delightful, narrated by Folds himself, adorned with some perfectly placed sound effects and music samples, and featuring a charming surprise cameo by [Amanda Palmer]( For a necessary counterpoint, see poet Robert Penn Warren’s admonition against [the problematic notion of “finding yourself,”]( then revisit Hermann Hesse on [how to find your destiny]( Beethoven’s [advice on being an artist]( penned in a letter to a little girl who had sent him fan mail, and Amanda Palmer on [how to keep on making art when life unmakes you](. [Forward to a friend]( Online]( [Like on Facebook]( donating=loving I pour tremendous time, thought, heart, and resources into Brain Pickings, which remains free and ad-free, and is made possible by patronage. If you find any joy, stimulation, and consolation in my labor of love, please consider supporting it with a donation. And if you already donate, from the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU. monthly donation You can become a Sustaining Patron with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a Brooklyn lunch.  one-time donation Or you can become a Spontaneous Supporter with a one-time donation in any amount. [Start Now](  [Give Now]( [---] You're receiving this email because you subscribed on Brain Pickings. This weekly newsletter comes out on Sundays and offers the week's most unmissable articles. Brain Pickings NOT A MAILING ADDRESS 159 Pioneer StreetBrooklyn, NY 11231 [Add us to your address book]( [unsubscribe from this list](   [update subscription preferences](