Pimp the Pain: Purpose-inspired Dialogues

Pimp the Pain:: Purpose-inspired Dialogues is a testimony, one that adds to Viktor Frankl’s assertion that the individual meanings of today transform into the universal values of tomorrow. The aim of this book is to educate the reader about Viktor Frankl’s philosophy of finding meaning and purpose in life. Its author, Solomon Makola, has achieved his objective in an innovative way, by reflecting on his personal experiences regarding each of three key ways humans have of finding meaning in life. According to Frankl, we are able to achieve meaning and purpose in life through:: the creative things we do and the particular contributions we make in rendering a service to society; and, in our own small ways, in making the world a better place to live in; the wonderful experiences life affords us through loving relationships, the beauty and glory of nature, and music, art and literature. From these we learn to appreciate what is good, true and beautiful in life, and to establish the values we seek to preserve and foster in the world; and our attitudinal values, or the stance we adopt towards strokes of fate over which we have no control (eg any tragedies that befall us, losses we suffer, terminal diseases we contract). In other words, our attitudinal values define how we choose to relate to problems not of our own making but which we have to deal with. Moreover, Pimp the Pain deals with every kind of suffering humans are subjected to. Dr Solomon Makola decided to describe such experiences, which hold great value for him and for each of us by placing them on Facebook, the popular social-media avenue of communication with others. The fact that this method of communicating what is valuable in life – ie, what fills our lives with meaning and helps us to realise purpose – elicited such a wide variety of enthusiastic and endorsing responses from its Facebook audience, is an indication that this book is definitely a ‘must have’. It is also, as the author contends, an innovative and powerful way of teaching the tenets of Logotherapy, the particular school of thought developed by the late Dr Viktor Frankl, famous author of the bestseller Man’s Search for Meaning. That is the great potential of this book. Pimp the Pain:: Purpose-inspired Dialogues is also a worthy companion to the (slightly) more conventional book by Dr Makola, entitled Stop Wondering:: Find Meaning, also published by UNISA Press.