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This is a book by Austrian psychologist, Viktor Frankl, about his observations of the human condition, recorded while surviving the Holocaust. He identified work, love and suffering as the three ways we can find meaning in life - while suffering is how we can reach our highest potential, because it tests us the most. He observed how vital hope was for survival, and how some people were profoundly graceful and generous in their suffering
 like those who gave away their meager piece of bread, or even how a starving woman made the last days on this earth count by appreciating a single track against a blue sky she was able to see through a slit in the wood
 It is really the best guide to living I have found. A few years after reading it, I was approached to direct a documentary about the writers of Netflix’s Oscar-winning “All Quiet on the Western Front” as they adapt Man’s Search for Meaning into a screenplay. They are a power couple facing the biggest challenge of a lifetime: After 22 years of marriage and partnership, sports psychologist Simon Marshall, and 5X World Champion Triathlete, Lesley Paterson, get their dream job to adapt their favorite book Man’s Search for Meaning, but the same day they get the job, Simon receives a call from his doctor telling him that he has Stage 3 Pancreatic Cancer. The film we’ve been shooting follows their journey across the world, retracing Frankl’s life journey while pursuing cures for this deadly form of cancer. Our documentary is shaping up to be a modern Man’s Search of Meaning, because it is all about turning something devastating into a triumph by making it meaningful - and it has changed my life forever to take on the challenge of telling this essential story.  
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Jan 16, 2025

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i read it my freshman year of high school and it rocked my world. since then i have passed my copy around so many friends and family and it’s been filled with so many annotations from its journey
Feb 20, 2025
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Yes I realize this is far more than one book, but I read all of these stories in very close succession & I believe they shaped me into the guy I am today. These are all very sensitive-young-man-core, but what can I say? I was a sensitive young man. I have a very complicated relationship with Mother & Father. When I was first introduced to Kafka, it was like meeting my soulmate. I don’t have it in me to go into much detail at this moment, but being condemned to death by drowning for failing an aging father who can sense a deeply felt resentment; waking up one day to find you’ve turned into a disgusting bug after sacrificing so much for a family that cares so little— these are ideas that deeply rattled & resonated with me personally at the age that I read them. I resolved to try to live differently. Death of Ivan Ilych was simply further exhortation for me to not live my life according to convention, to pursue wealth, status, family life for their own sakes. I think every single one of us has it in us to become an Ivan Ilych without even realizing. I was totally rapt & manic upon finishing this one I still am today, to some degree. Portrait of the Artist really spoke to me as well. When Stephen looks at his father & realizes he’s a fool, and that he wants to be nothing like him. The moment when he sees the girl in the water & he becomes so horny he decides to dedicate his life to the pursuit of beauty, to aesthetics, to being an artist. The entire ending segment written as first person journal entries filled me with a lot of hope. Emerson is the man. Great way to shock the materialist reductionist, the comformist, the busybody, & the consistent, conventional company man out of your system. Probably made me a more annoying person when alls said & done. Oh well.
May 12, 2024
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thrifted this without knowing who anthony quinn was, just liked the cover, but now I need to watch his movies. the book was great it was him telling his lifestory and his struggles through talking to a psychiatrist. very personal, dark at times but also hopeful, and the answer to everything is LOVE.
Mar 4, 2024

Top Recs from @ondi-timoner

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If you have a dog, walk them! If not, walk anyway! I have found my whole life that walking is the best way to feed my mind, body, and soul simultaneously
 and to see and discover any new city. I travel a lot with my films, and sometimes I clock in 13 miles in a day
 On any day at home,  it’s a sacred time, as the sun sets and we walk our dogs. But if I can take care of phone calls, listen to podcasts, do Zooms and catch up with my partner and friends while moving my feet down the street, waving at neighbors and taking in the natural beauty that is waiting to be discovered around every corner - I will choose that any day. Wandering around a city is also our favorite way to experience any city in the world.
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Staying at the Roxy in NY (formerly the Tribeca Grand) is akin to being on an elegant cruise in Manhattan. It’s my home away from home in the city. Everything is there: from live jazz in the massive atrium lobby with the glass elevator zipping up and down and the divine food and drinks (I recommend the lobster roll and a mescal cocktail) in recessed leather booths shaped like teacups, to the gorgeous red velvet theater below - which offers the best films on screen in Manhattan - curated by the brilliant Illyse Singer. After attending a killer film and fascinating Q&A, retreat to the Django, the speakeasy next door, which stays open til 4AM and is often where the hottest underground music acts play
 What else could you ask for? 
Jan 16, 2025
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I gave birth to my son Joaquim “Juki” just two days before exporting DIG! and submitting it to Sundance. So I found myself with an 11 week-old infant in my arms, breastfeeding between Q&As and even went home to do so after winning the Grand Jury Prize (when normally I would have been out til dawn celebrating) - so he kept my feet firmly on the ground, but also, made everything so much more entertaining.  Over the next two years, I brought Juki with me to 17 countries and all over the states, as the film exploded in popularity, and I had an absolute blast witnessing this wild and beautiful world through the ever-curious and amazed eyes of a baby. I loved documenting Juki on our travels, dancing in his stroller in Paris, kicking back listening to classical street musicians in Vienna.  Traveling with my son made the experience so much richer and also kept my feet on the ground. When we won Sundance again five years later with WE LIVE IN PUBLIC, I was so excited to take my him to Australia and New Zealand, Oaxaca and later Bhutan - so many more fascinating places with the films, and the resulting 21 year-old has a wisdom and confidence which I think must be at lest in part a result of this special upbringing.
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