This is from the book "Man's Search for Meaning", which I just finished reading. Written by a concentration camp... victim? Pretty powerful book. The guy's a psychologist, so he has an interesting perspective. Here's a relevant quote.
My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn't even know if she were still alive. I knew only one thing--which I have learned well by now: Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spirutal being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.
I did not know whether my wife was alive, and I had no means of finding out; but at that moment it ceased to matter. There was no need for me to know; nothing could touch the strength of my love, my thoughts, and the image of my beloved. Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I would still have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of her image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying. "Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as sttrong as death."
This intensification of inner life helped the prisoner find refuge from the emptiness, desolation and spiritual poverty of his existence, by letting him escape into the past.
The author develops his "logotherapy" from his experience in the concentration camps. He realizes that there is meaning even in a life only of suffering; that it's not a special case--all people have suffering, and all must find meaning within it. And from that, he goes beyond the suffering, to find meaning not by asking what you want from life, but by understanding what life is asking of you.
It's a really good read, and only 100 pages. And I've really done a lot of reading in philosophy and cognition, so I'm not just saying that because it's the first time I've read such a thing.
Sorry to butt in... and somehow I don't think this will move you off your stance. But I do agree with (Dakta) Watson75, reward has little to do with reality, and much more to do with "inner reality." Taking an objective standpoint (determining what's "true" and "false) isn't helpful in this case.
Ben
I don't want a large Farva, I want a goddamn liter-a-cola.
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