The Frankl Project Mission Statement: Curing Suffering

Love, Respect, And Personal Dignity

Dear Friends,

Would you be willing to take 20 seconds to sign this simple pledge (thefranklproject.org/pledge) to support our non-profit?

Context: We are writing to you on behalf of a just-launching non-profit called The Frankl Project (thefranklproject.org) with a GoFundMe and a dirt simple mission: To promote the reading of two books shown to help 'cure suffering':

1) Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl (wiki, audible),

-- All life has positive potential meaning.

2) Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, by Dr. Robert Sapolsky (wiki, audible).

-- Scientifically free will is defined as 'anything we don't understand, so let the past go.

Our ask: Sign The Frankl Pledge (20 seconds, thefranklproject.org/pledge), a simple pledge to try to promote the amount of 'meaning in the world', and belief in Frankl's core message:

Everything can be taken from a person except 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.

The Frankl Project stems from a simple observation from an Uber driver who grew up as a child soldier: "A lot of my friends killed themselves, I was very depressed, but I read Man's Search For Meaning five times, and after that I was alright." His passenger replied: Huh, I did the same thing. From this we get our thesis.

The Frankl Project will have no expensive admins, anyone can volunteer: Sign up to volunteer here (thefranklproject.org/volunteer), record your hours here (thefranklproject.org/hours), and join the community here (thefranklproject.org/community).

That's everything you need to know! Thank you so much for your time and support!

The Frankl Project Pledge:

(for those still reading)

I pledge to promote humanity's belief that everything can be taken from a person except 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.

I pledge to promote the ideas of Viktor Frankl, developed during his imprisonment, and embodied in his book Man's Search For Meaning. I pledge to do what I can to share our thesis that reading Man's Search For Meaning five times can cure suffering, and reduce despair.

Furthermore, I will do what I can to forgive myself and others for the past, recognizing that fear, anger, and hate lead to suffering. I will help share the therapeutic value of the book Determined by Dr. Robert Sapolsky, and his thesis that, "we are nothing more or less than the cumulative biological and environmental luck, over which we had no control, that has brought us to any moment.”

I recognize that it was in fact the punishment of the innocent in the aftermath of World War I that contributed to World War II, and from this humanity learned the value of forgiveness of oneself and others.

The Story of Frankl Project by Anonymous:

(for those still reading)

In 2023, I caught an Uber to The Sundance Film Festival and asked my Uber driver to tell me his life story: He grew up in Afghanistan, learned English from American movies, joined up with U.S. Special Forces, and spent a decade fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan. He recalled standing with a friend overlooking a Utah mall. His friend said, “it’s okay, nobody knows what we did here”. A hell of a thing to hear from your Uber driver.

My Uber driver said that many of his U.S. and Afghan friends struggled with crippling guilt and depression, and he himself had been suicidal, he “had read the book Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl five times” and now he was “alright”.

My response was: Huh, I did the same thing.

Man’s Search For Meaning was written by the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl ‘in his head’ while a prisoner at the concentration camp Dachau during World War II. Upon his liberation by allied forces, he wrote the book down over the course of just 9 days, and it has since helped some ~50 million people, and forms the basis for logotherapy, the 'third Viennese School of psychotherapy'. Frankl wrote that “everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of the human freedoms, the ability to choose your own attitude in response to a given situation. To choose one’s own way.”

Frankl remembers how he and his fellow prisoners felt great joy while experiencing great pain even as they were tortured in freezing cold because someone stole a piece of bread. Dr. Frankl realized that pain and suffering are distinct, what matters is the meaning you assign to your experience. From this we can deduce that the challenge of finding happiness is imbuing ourselves (even tricking ourselves) into believing that our lives have profound meaning. This is easier said than done, but we can actually think of this as a physics problem, since our bodies are physical objects.

In 2023 my other favorite medical writer, Professor Robert Sapolsky of Stanford’s Neuroscience and Primatology departments published Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. Dr. Sapolsky had a very simple thesis: Free will is anything we don’t understand. Dr. Sapolsky highlights a story of a disabled man on death row deemed guilty because he had beaten the prosecutor at tic tac toe: The defense had found a 'circus chicken' that could also perform this feat. Dr. Sapolsky painstakingly argues that evil is just a disease like cancer or schizophrenia. Punishment protects and deters, but it isn't 'fair' in any real sense.

Like Dr. Frankl, Dr. Sapolsky had a very simple thesis that can help people let go of blame, hatred, and self-hatred, break cycles of retribution, and help us forgive ourselves and others:

“You cannot decide all the sensory stimuli in your environment, your hormone levels this morning, whether something traumatic happened to you in the past, the socioeconomic status of your parents, your fetal environment, your genes, whether your ancestors were farmers or herders. Let me state this most broadly, probably at this point too broadly for most readers: we are nothing more or less than the cumulative biological and environmental luck, over which we had no control, that has brought us to any moment.”

- From Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will

The Connection Between These Two Books:

(For those still reading)

As a student of history, I found a fascinating connection between these two books. Dr. Frankl had gone to great lengths to prove why all lives had meaning: To the horror of many who felt no explanation was needed, he had scientifically proven why the men who had sent his pregnant wife, family, and millions of those they saw as ‘undesirable’ to their deaths were idiots, not just morally, but scientifically: He had meticulously proven why every life must be treated as having positive potential worth.

In college I studied masculinity, specifically evil, and read Male Fantasies, a literary analysis of Nazi writing. At the heart of darkness I found the man Hitler called ‘the man with the iron heart’. As this evil man lay dying, assassinated by the allies, he spoke his final words, a line from one of his father’s operas: “The world is a barrel organ, that the good lord turns himself, all we can do is dance…to the music that’s already on the drum.”

A barrel organ is like a player piano (self-playing), music comes from mechanical movement over a patterned surface. I realized that this greatest of evildoers was echoing Sapolsky: His dying words were, ‘free will is an illusion’. From this I found my thesis: The source of the greatest evil is the denial of free will in combination with the belief that some lives are worthless.

This led me to my thesis for The Frankl Project: To fight the greatest evil, we must accept both that free will is an illusion, and that we are free to choose our own way, our own attitude in response to a given situation. The cure to evil was Frankl. Frankl + Sapolsky.

As I studied humans, I found at the source of trauma was blame, anger, and fear. To quote Yoda: Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to suffering.

My thesis was simple: Reading Frank and Sapolsky five-times-each can cure extreme suffering.

I knew this thesis was correct, because I had experienced it myself, and seen it echoed by another.

The most audacious hypothesis was that reading/listening to Frankl and Sapolsky five times could reduce suffering in anyone.

To disprove a hypothesis, all I needed was one proof point: I needed to find one person who had truly deeply read Man’s Search For Meaning and Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will five times each like me, whose suffering had not been profoundly lessened. Please help me prove this hypothesis.

The Frankl Project Vision:

(For those still reading)

Our vision for The Frankl Project is to virally spread the thesis of Frankl and Sapolsky. We envision millions of people who volunteer their time to spread this message, volunteer to read the books aloud, and come together to share the vision.

Is not promoting meaning itself a cure to 'the existential vacuum of meaning that infects this world? Frankl himself noted that the majority of people (something like 60% in the U.S.) live in a 'total existential vacuum'.

A big important idea drawn from the book The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane (wiki, audible) is that the human brain cannot distinguish between a thought that is true and a thought that is false. Thus we can think of our minds as a pond: Any negative or unhelpful thought is a ripple in this pond.

Another helpful metaphor is to think of ones mind as a garden: To find happiness, we must cultivate our garden, and hlep others cultivate their garden. It seems rare to find a person who is doggedly positive, surrounded by loving people who adore them, who is disciplined and optimistic in their thinking, who feels that their lives are very meaningful, who is not happier than most. Yet in my experience humanity and the medical industry is extremely bad at delivering people to a place where they have all these things, and there is no substitute.

Cabane quotes the definitely charismatic (if controversial) President Clinton: All most people need is one person who looks at them like they're the most important person in the world. The happiest people I've met have just that.

The vision of The Frankl Project is to promote precisely that: Communities of people who adore one another, and who abide by and spread the ideals of Frankl.

Finally, it is worth noting the current moment in human history: War, radical technological and economic change, and uncertainty. Our leaders tell us machines will replace us. May this project help us maintain our sense of meaning and grow ever stronger together.

Thank you to everyone who wishes to support this mission.

The Frankl Project: What's In It For You?

(For those still reading)

We'd like to incentivize people to donate their time and to fundraise for The Frankl Project non-profit. A simple $5/mo entry-level membership fee could be enough to incentivize people to volunteer their time to the project: For $5/mo membership fee, you get a referral code: For each donation given with your referral code, you get 20% recurring ($1/mo.). Recruit five members and you cover your membership fee in perpetuity. Far too often I've been approached by pyramid schemes selling garbage: If people need a side hustle, why not have them sell the cure to suffering?

Our plan is to use donations of time and resources very simply, and to keep administrative costs very low: We can bring people together in nature to listen to and discuss these books, build community, and to heal.

In short: Our bet is that the world would be a whole lot safer, and a whole lot less traumatized, if we all had read Frankl and Sapolsky.

All donations to gofundme/f/thefranklproject will go to promoting this mission.

May we help change the world together.

With much love, respect, and personal dignity,

Anonymous