by Irvin Yalom
Julius knew Philip would not answer on his own and nudged him. “Philip?”
Shaking his head, Philip replied, “I don’t know how to assess your hypothesis. But there is something else I want to say. I confess that, like Pam, I also have been looking for comforting or at least relevant things to say to you. I have followed Schopenhauer’s practice of ending each day reading from the works of Epictetus or from the Upanishads.” Philip glanced in Tony’s direction. “Epictetus was a Roman philosopher of the second century, and the Upanishads are an ancient sacred Hindu text. The other night I read a passage from Epictetus that I thought would be of value, and I’ve made copies of it. I’ve translated it loosely from the Latin into current vernacular.” Philip reached into his briefcase, handed out copies to each member, and then, eyes closed, recited the passage from memory.
When, on a sea voyage, the ship is brought to anchor, you go out to fetch water and gather a few roots and shells by the way. But you always need to keep your mind fixed on the ship, and constantly to look around, lest at any time the master of the ship call, and you must heed that call and cast away all those things, lest you be treated like the sheep that are bound and thrown into the hold.
So it is with human life also. And if there be available wife and children instead of shells and roots, nothing should hinder us from taking them. But if the master call, run to the ship, forsaking all those things, and without looking behind. And if thou be in old age, go not far from the ship at any time, lest the master should call, and thou be not ready.
Philip ended and held out his arms as though to say, “There it is.”
The group studied the passage. They were bewildered. Stuart broke the silence, “I’m trying, but, Philip, I don’t get it. What’s the value of this for Julius? Or for us?”
Julius pointed to his watch. “Sorry to say we’re out of time. But let me be teacherly and make one point. I often view a statement or act from two different points of view—from its content and from its process—and by process I mean what it tells us about the nature of the relationship between the parties involved. Like you, Stuart, I don’t immediately understand the content of Philip’s message: I’ve got to study it, and maybe the content can be a topic in another meeting. But I know something about the process. What I know, Philip, is that you, like Pam, were thinking about me, wanted to give me a gift, and you went to some lengths to do it: you memorized the passage and you made copies. And the meaning of that? It’s got to reflect your caring about me. And what do I feel about it? I’m touched, I appreciate it, and I look forward to the time when you can express your caring in your own words.”
30
* * *
Life can be compared to a piece of embroidered material of which, everyone in the first half of his time, comes to see the top side, but in the second half, the reverse side. The latter is not so beautiful, but is more instructive because it enables one to see how the threads are connected together.
* * *
When the group left, Julius watched them walk down his front stairs to the street. Rather than peel off singly to their parked cars, they continued in a clump, undoubtedly on their way to the coffee shop. Oh, how he would have liked to grab his windbreaker and go flying down the stairs to join them. But that was another day, another life, another pair of legs, he thought, as he crept down the hall heading toward his office computer to enter his notes on the meeting. Suddenly, he changed his mind, walked back into the group room, took out his pipe, and enjoyed the aroma of rich Turkish tobacco. He had no particular purpose other than simply to bask for a few minutes more in the embers of the group session.
This meeting, like the last three or four, had been riveting. His thoughts drifted back to the groups of breast cancer patients he had led so long ago. How often had those members described a golden period once they overcame the panic of realizing that they were truly going to die. Some said living with cancer had made them wiser, more self-realized, while others had reordered their priorities in life, grown stronger, learned to say no to activities they no longer valued and yes to things that really mattered—such as loving their family and friends, observing the beauty about them, savoring the changing seasons. But what a pity, so many had lamented, that it was only after their bodies were riddled with cancer that they had learned how to live.
These changes were so dramatic—indeed one patient had proclaimed, “Cancer cures psychoneurosis”—that on a couple of occasions Julius impishly described only the psychological changes to a class of students and then asked them to guess what kind of therapy was involved. How shocked students were to learn it was not therapy or medication but a confrontation with death that had made the difference. He owed a lot to those patients. What a model they were for him in his time of need. What a pity he couldn’t tell them. Live right, he reminded himself, and have faith that good things will flow from you even if you never learn of them.
And how are you doing with your cancer? he asked himself. I know a lot about the panic phase which, thank God, I’m now coming out of even though there are still those 3 A.M. times when panic grips with a nameless terror that yields to no reasoning or rhetoric—it yields to nothing except Valium, the light of breaking dawn, or a soothing hot-tub soak.
But have I changed or grown wiser? he wondered. Had my golden period? Maybe I’m closer to my feelings—maybe that’s growth. I think, no, I know I’ve become a better therapist—grown more sensitive ears. Yes, definitely I’m a different therapist. Before my melanoma I would never have said that I was in love with the group. I would never have dreamed of revealing such intimate details of my life—Miriam’s death, my sexual opportunism. And my irresistible compulsion to confess to the group today—Julius shook his head in amazement—that’s something to wonder about, he thought. I feel a push to go against the grain, against my training, my own teaching.
One thing for sure, they did not want to hear me. Talk about resistance! They wanted no part of my blemishes or my darkness. But, once I put it out, some interesting stuff emerged. Tony was something else! Acted like a skilled therapist—inquiring whether I was satisfied with the group’s response, trying to normalize my behavior, pressing about “why now.” Terrific stuff. I could almost imagine him leading the group after I’m gone—that would be something—a college drop-out therapist with jail time in his past. And others—Gill, Stuart, Pam—stepped up, took care of me, and kept the group focused. Jung had other things in mind when he said that only the wounded healer can truly heal, but maybe honing the patients’ therapeutic skills is a good enough justification for therapists to reveal their wounds.
Julius moseyed down the hall to his office and continued thinking about the meeting. And Gill—did he show up today! Calling Pam “the chief justice” was terrific—and accurate. I have to help Pam integrate that feedback. Here’s a case when Gill’s vision is sharper than mine. For a long time I’ve liked Pam so much that I overlooked her pathology—maybe that’s why I couldn’t help her with her obsession about John.
Julius turned on his computer and opened a file titled, “Short Story Plots”—a file which contained the great unfulfilled project in his life: to be a real writer. He was a good, contributing professional writer (he had published two books and a hundred articles in the psychiatric literature), but Julius yearned to write literature and for decades had collected plots for short stories from his imagination and his practice. Though he had started several, he never found the time, nor the courage, to finish and submit a story for publication.
Scrolling down the lists of plots he clicked on “Victims confront their enemy” and read two of his ideas. The first confrontation took place on a posh ship cruising off the Turkish coast. A psychiatrist enters the ship’s casino and there across the smoke-filled room sees an ex-patient, a con man who had once swindled him out of seventy-five thousand dollars. The second confrontation plot involved a female attorney who was assigned a pro bono case to defend an accused rapist. On her first jail interv
iew with him she suspects he is the man who raped her ten years before.
He made a new entry: “In a therapy group a woman encounters a man who, many years before, had been her teacher and sexually exploited her.” Not bad. Great potential for literature, Julius thought, though he knew it would never be written. There were ethical issues: he’d need permission from Pam and Philip. And he’d need, also, the passage of ten years, which he didn’t have. But potential, too, for good therapy, thought Julius. He was certain that something positive could come of this—if only he could keep them both in the group and could bear the pain of opening up old wounds.
Julius picked up Philip’s translation of the tale of the ship’s passengers. He reread it several times, trying to understand its meaning or relevance. But still he ended up shaking his head. Philip offered it as comfort. But where was the comfort?
31
How Arthur Lived
* * *
Even when there is no particular provocation, I always have an anxious concern that causes me to see and look for dangers when none exist; for me it magnifies to infinity the tiniest vexation and makes association with people most difficult.
* * *
After obtaining his doctorate, Arthur lived in Berlin, briefly in Dresden, Munich, and Mannheim, and then, fleeing a cholera epidemic, settled, for the last thirty years of his life, in Frankfurt, which he never left aside from one-day excursions. He had no paid employment, lived in rented rooms, never had a home, hearth, wife, family, intimate friendships. He had no social circle, no close acquaintances, and no sense of community—in fact he was often the subject of local ridicule. Until the very last few years of his life he had no audience, readership, or income from his writings. Since he had so few relationships, his meager correspondence consisted primarily of business matters.
Despite his lack of friends, we nonetheless know more about his personal life than that of most philosophers because he was astonishingly personal in his philosophical writings. For example, in the opening paragraphs of the introduction to his major work, The World as Will and Representation, he strikes an unusually personal note for a philosophic treatise. His pure and clear prose makes it immediately evident that he desires to communicate personally with the reader. First he instructs the reader how to read his book, starting with a plea to read the book twice—and to do so with much patience. Next he urges the reader to first read his previous book, On the Fourfold Root of Sufficient Reason, which serves as an introduction to this book and assures the reader that he will feel much gratitude toward him for his advice. He then states that the reader will profit even more if he is familiar with the magnificent work of Kant and the divine Plato. He notes that he has, however, discovered grave errors in Kant, which he discusses in an appendix (which should also be read first), and lastly notes that those readers familiar with the Upanishads will be prepared best of all to comprehend his book. And, finally, he remarks (quite correctly) that the reader must be growing angry and impatient with his presumptuous, immodest, and time-consuming requests. How odd that this most personal of philosophic writers should have lived so impersonally.
In addition to personal references inserted into his work, Schopenhauer reveals much about himself in an autobiographical document with a title written in Greek, (About Myself), a manuscript shrouded in mystery and controversy whose strange story goes like this:
Late in his life there gathered around Arthur a very small circle of enthusiasts, or “evangelists,” whom he tolerated but neither respected nor liked. These acquaintances often heard him speak of “About Myself,” an autobiographical journal in which he had been jotting observations about himself for the previous thirty years. Yet after his death something strange happened: “About Myself” was nowhere to be found. After searching in vain, Schopenhauer’s followers confronted Wilhelm Gwinner, the executor of Schopenhauer’s will, about the missing document. Gwinner informed them that “About Myself” no longer existed; as Schopenhauer had instructed him he had burned it immediately after his death.
Yet a short time later the same Wilhelm Gwinner wrote the first biography of Arthur Schopenhauer, and in it Schopenhauer’s evangelists insisted they recognized sections of the “About Myself” document either in direct quotes or in paraphrase. Had Gwinner copied the manuscript before burning it? Or not burned it all and instead plundered it for use in his biography? Controversy swirled for decades, and ultimately another Schopenhauer scholar reconstituted the document from Gwinner’s book and from other of Schopenhauer’s writings and published the forty-seven-page at the end of the four-volume Nachschlass (Manuscript Remains). “About Me” is an odd reading experience because each paragraph is followed by a description of its Byzantine provenance, often longer than the text itself.
Why was it that Arthur Schopenhauer never had a job? The story of Arthur’s kamikaze strategy for obtaining a position at the university is another one of those quirky anecdotes included in every biographical account of Schopenhauer’s life. In 1820, at the age of thirty-two, he was offered his first teaching job, a temporary, very low-salaried position (Privatdozent) to teach philosophy at the University of Berlin. What did he do but immediately and deliberately schedule his lecture course (titled “The Essence of the World”) at the exact same hour as the course offered by Georg Wilhelm Hegel, the departmental chairman and the most renowned philosopher of the day?
Two hundred eager students crammed into Hegel’s course, whereas only five came to hear Schopenhauer describe himself as an avenger who had come to liberate post-Kantian philosophy from the empty paradoxes and the corrupting and obscure language of contemporary philosophy. It was no secret that Schopenhauer’s target was Hegel and Hegel’s predecessor, Fichte (remember, the philosopher who had begun life as a gooseherd and walked across all of Europe in order to meet Kant). Obviously, none of this endeared the young Schopenhauer to Hegel or to the other faculty members, and when no students at all materialized for Schopenhauer’s course the following semester his brief and reckless academic career was over: he never again gave a public lecture.
In his thirty years at Frankfurt until his death in 1860, Schopenhauer adhered to a regular daily schedule, almost as precise as Kant’s daily routine. His day began with three hours of writing followed by a hour, sometimes two, of playing the flute. He swam daily in the cold Main River, rarely missing a day even in the midst of winter. He always lunched at the same club, the Englisher Hof, dressed in tails and white tie, a costume that was high fashion in his youth but conspicuously out of style in mid-nineteenth century Frankfurt. It was to his luncheon club that any curious person wanting to meet the odd and querulous philosopher would go.
Anecdotes about Schopenhauer at the Englisher Hof abound: his enormous appetite, often consuming food for two (when someone remarked upon this, he replied that he also thought for two), his paying for two lunches to ensure no one sat next to him, his gruff but penetrating conversation, his frequent outbursts of temper, his blacklist of individuals to whom he refused to speak, his tendency to discuss inappropriate shocking topics—for example, praising the new scientific discovery that allowed him to avoid venereal infection by dipping his penis after intercourse into a dilute solution of bleaching powder.
Though he enjoyed serious conversation, he rarely found dining companions he deemed worthy of his time. For some time, he regularly placed a gold piece on the table when he sat down and removed it when he left. One of the military officers that usually lunched at the same table once asked him about the purpose of this exercise. Schopenhauer replied that he would donate the gold piece for the poor the day that he heard officers have a serious conversation that did not entirely revolve around their horses, dogs, or women. During his meal he would address his poodle, Atman, as “You, Sir,” and if Atman misbehaved he redressed him by calling him “You Human!”
Many anecdotes of his sharp wit are told. Once a diner asked him a question to which he simply responded, “I don’t know.” The young man commented,
“Well, well, I thought you, a great sage, knew everything!” Schopenhauer replied, “No, knowledge is limited, only stupidity is unlimited!” A query to Schopenhauer from or about women or marriage elicited without fail an acerbic response. He was once forced to endure the company of a very talkative woman, who described in detail the misery of her marriage. He listened patiently, but when she asked if he understood her, he replied, “No, but I do understand your husband.”
In another reported exchange he was asked if he would marry.
“I have no intention to get married because it would only cause me worries.”
“And why would that would be the case?”
“I would be jealous, because my wife would cheat on me.”
“Why are you so sure of that?”
“Because I would deserve it.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I would have married.”
He also had sharp words to say about physicians, once remarking that doctors have two different handwritings: a barely legible one for prescriptions and a clear and proper one for their bills.
A writer who visited the fifty-eight-year-old Schopenhauer at lunch in 1846 described him thus:
Well built…invariably well dressed but an outmoded cut…medium height with short silvery hair…amused and exceedingly intelligent blue-flecked eyes…displayed an introverted and, when he spoke, almost baroque nature, whereby he daily supplied considerable material to the cheap satire of…the table company. Thus, this often comically disgruntled, but in fact harmless and good-naturedly gruff, table companion became the butt of the jokes of insignificant men who would regularly—though admittedly not ill-meaningly—make fun of him.