“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.” ~Viktor Frankl
Two years ago I was writing a novel in my mountain cottage. It was a dark and cold afternoon in February. It was a cold and dark afternoon in February. When I turned around I saw that my porch had caught fire.
As I walked out of my house in my slippers and looked back, the entire front facade was engulfed with flames.
The experience was similar to a near death experience. My mind quickly took an inventory of all the things that were inside the cottage now burning down—pretty much all of my personal belongings. However, in that moment, I realized that nothing else mattered but the manuscript I’d been working on.
After the fire brigade left, and after I had taken one final look at what was once my home, I got in the car with Marius my border collie. (The car keys survived in a miraculous way.
I was on my way to my mother’s house, nearly 100 miles away, where I would, or so I…
