I remember a therapy session at work, yesterday, when we were talking about comparing your problems to other people’s problems. Somebody quoted how Victor Frankl wrote that any problem will fill the available space, like a gas.
I just looked up the exact quote, from Man’s Search for Meaning, and here it is:
To draw an analogy: a man’s suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the “size” of human suffering is absolutely relative.
I really appreciated that person filling my office with Victor Frankl’s life-filling thoughts.
I remember, also yesterday, how my ears, mind, heart, and soul were filled with this Stephen Sondheim song, from Evening Primrose:
That song — “I Remember” — is sung by a girl who’s been trapped, from a very young age, inside a department store.
I loved Evening Primrose when I saw it, on television, when I was a kid. What fills my mind now is how I may have related to that girl, since I filled some of my days and nights trapped — not in a department store, but in a Children’s Hospital.
Like that girl, I am filled with appreciation for all those wonderful things that fill the world.
As usual, what filled my ears, eyes, mind, and soul, yesterday — including the beautiful lyrics from “I Remember” — affected how my iPhone was filled with images and how I fill this post, today:
That “Work Zone” sign is filling that last photo so much, you might miss the first flowering tree I’ve seen in Boston, this spring.
Feel free to fill the space of a comment here with anything that’s filling you, now, about this post.
I shall now fill the space of this post with my gratitude for my patients, for Victor Frankl, for Stephen Sondheim, for Judy Butterfield, for the sky, for the trees, for everything I experienced yesterday, and for you.