The Vienna Coffee House
Literary Non-Fiction

Shariq Ali
Valueversity

The heat in the streets of Vienna that afternoon was more intense than usual.

The young man had been wandering aimlessly through the city for hours. Sometimes he would stop in the shade of a church; sometimes he would watch people sitting in a public square. He was a tourist, but his weariness was not merely physical.

A few questions were travelling with him.

Why does life sometimes suddenly become difficult?
Why does a sense of emptiness remain even after we attain the things we have pursued for years?

And if happiness is the purpose of life, why does it never last?

In one of the narrow streets, he noticed an old coffee house and stepped inside.
Vienna’s traditional coffee houses have never been merely places to drink coffee. They were the city’s informal drawing rooms, where newspapers, literature, politics, music, and philosophy became part of everyday conversation.
Inside were dark wooden tables, velvet seats, mirrors on the walls, and newspaper stands. It felt as though he had stepped out of a twenty-first-century street and travelled a hundred years into the past.

He ordered a hot chocolate and settled into a quiet corner.

A voice drifted over from a nearby table.
“The human problem is that we want to be happy, yet often we do not even know who we are.”
Two elderly men were sitting there.

The other replied:
“And knowing yourself is not enough. A person must also know what he is living for.”

The first man smiled.
“So you still believe meaning is more important than happiness?”
“The direct pursuit of happiness often drives it farther away. Give life meaning, and sometimes happiness finds its own way to you.”
The conversation was no longer background noise to the young man.

The first man continued:
“But how long can someone searching for meaning keep running from the darkness within? There are parts of ourselves that we hide not only from others, but even from ourselves.”

The other replied:
“And sometimes life brings us to a place where the question is no longer, ‘What will life give me?’ but rather, ‘What does life ask of me at this moment?’”
The young man found himself staring at them.

One of the men noticed.
“You seem as though you would like to say something.”
“I’m sorry. I was listening to your conversation.”

The man smiled.
“If a good conversation reaches the neighbouring table, that is hardly a crime.”
The young man gathered his courage.
“What if someone is tired and sad, but the tiredness is not merely of the body?”

There was silence for a few moments. Then one of the men gestured towards the empty chair at their table.
“Come. Sit with us.”
The young man picked up his cup and joined them.
“Tired of what?”

“That is precisely what I don’t know. Life appears to be fine, and yet something seems out of place. We want happiness, success, peace. One destination after another. What, in the end, does a human being really need?”
The first man said:
“Perhaps the problem is that you think happiness is a destination.”

The other continued:
“And perhaps you believe you are only what the world can see. Part of the personality remains behind the curtain—our fears, envy, desires, failures, and the dreams we hesitate to admit even to ourselves. Until we recognise this shadow, we cannot become whole.”

The young man thought of Sigmund Freud. How could one speak of the human mind in Vienna without thinking of Freud? It was in this city that he had raised questions about the unconscious, instinct, and the hidden forces behind human behaviour, questions that changed the language of psychology.
The young man asked:
“So was Freud right? Are our sorrows rooted in repressed desires and unconscious conflicts?”

The first man smiled.
“Freud certainly opened a door. But the human mind is not a single room. It is an entire house—and beyond that house, there is a forest.”
The other man laughed.
“And a human being is not merely a prisoner of his past.”

Then his expression became serious.
“Sometimes a person can be stripped of home, freedom, status, future—everything. And yet one freedom may remain: the freedom to choose one’s attitude towards the circumstances one faces.”

There was less philosophy in his voice now, and more lived experience.
“Pain cannot always be removed. But when suffering is unavoidable, we can still choose to face it with a meaningful attitude.”
“Is all suffering meaningful?” the young man asked.
“No. It is equally wrong to romanticise suffering. We are speaking only of suffering that cannot be avoided. When it becomes unavoidable, a person can still decide how to face that reality.”
The hot chocolate had grown lukewarm.
“And happiness?” the young man asked.

The second man replied:
“If you run after it, trying to capture it, perhaps it will always remain beyond your reach. Love another human being. Work for a purpose. Commit yourself to a responsibility greater than yourself. And perhaps one day, when you look back, you will discover that happiness has been quietly walking beside you all along.”

The first man leaned towards him.
“But do not forget to journey inward as well. Meaning may be found outside ourselves, but if the person receiving that meaning remains divided within, peace is difficult to attain.”

The young man asked:
“Then what is a good life? Knowing oneself, or finding a meaning greater than oneself?”

The two men looked at each other.
“Perhaps both,” said the first.
The other nodded.
“Know yourself, but do not become imprisoned within yourself.”

The young man stepped out of the coffee house.
The heat had not diminished. The street was the same, the buildings were the same, and his steps were still tired.
But the questions had changed.

He turned and looked back through the window. The two old men were still deep in conversation.

He asked the waiter standing near the door:
“Who are those two men?”
The waiter looked first at him, then through the glass towards the table.
“Carl Gustav Jung.”

Then he gestured towards the other man.
“And that is Viktor Frankl, Vienna’s own Frankl.”
The young man walked on.
Perhaps he had found the answer to his question.

A good life is not a life without suffering. Perhaps a good life is one in which we come to know ourselves, connect ourselves to a meaning greater than ourselves, and preserve—even in the face of unavoidable suffering—the freedom to choose our attitude.

Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961):

Swiss psychiatrist and founder of Analytical Psychology. Through concepts such as the unconscious, personality, the Shadow, and Individuation, he significantly broadened our understanding of the human psyche.

Viktor Frankl (1905–1997):

Austrian psychiatrist, neurologist, and founder of Logotherapy. Having survived the Nazi concentration camps, he produced influential work on meaning, purpose, and the human capacity to choose one’s attitude in the face of suffering.