The Schopenhauer Cure

by Irvin Yalom

  Again and again he calmed himself by reciting mantras based on the fact of his genius: “My life is heroic and not to be measured by the standards of Philistines, shopkeepers or ordinary men…. I must therefore not be depressed when I consider how I lack those things that are part of an individual’s regular course of life…. therefore it cannot surprise me if my personal life seems incoherent and without any plan.” Schopenhauer’s belief in his genius served also to provide him with a perduring sense of life meaning: throughout his life he regarded himself as a missionary of truth to the human race.

  Loneliness was the demon that most plagued Schopenhauer, and he grew adept at constructing defenses against it. Of these, the most valuable was the conviction that he was master of his destiny—that he chose loneliness; loneliness did not choose him. When he was younger, he stated, he was inclined to be sociable, but thereafter: “I gradually acquired an eye for loneliness, became systematically unsociable and made up my mind to devote entirely to myself the rest of this fleeting life.” “I am not,” he reminded himself repeatedly, “in my native place and not among beings who are my equal.”

  So the defenses against isolation were powerful and deep: he voluntarily chose isolation, other beings were unworthy of his company, his genius-based mission in life mandated isolation, the life of geniuses must be a “monodrama,” and the personal life of a genius must serve one purpose: facilitating the intellectual life (hence, “the smaller the personal life, the safer, and thus the better”).

  At times Schopenhauer groaned under the burden of his isolation. “Throughout my life I have felt terribly lonely and have always sighed from the depths of my heart, ‘now give me a human being’ but, alas in vain. I have remained in solitude but I can honestly and sincerely say it has not been my fault, for I have not shunned or turned away anyone who was a human being.”

  Besides, he said, he was not really alone because—and here is another potent self-therapy strategy—he had his own circle of close friends: the great thinkers of the world.

  Only one such being was a contemporary, Goethe; most of the others were from antiquity, especially the Stoics, whom he quoted frequently. Almost every page of “About Me” contains some aphorism spawned by a great mind supporting his own convictions. Typical examples:

  The best aid for the mind is that which once for all breaks the tormenting bonds that ensnare the heart.—Ovid

  Whoever seeks peace and quiet should avoid women, the permanent source of trouble and dispute.—Petrarch

  It is impossible for anyone not to be perfectly happy who depends entirely upon himself and who possesses in himself all that he calls his.—Cicero

  A technique used by some leaders of therapy or personal growth groups is the “who am I?” exercise; members write seven answers to the question “who am I?” each on a different card, and then arrange the cards in order of importance. Next they are asked to turn over one card at a time, beginning with the most peripheral answer and to meditate upon what it would be like to let go of (that is, disidentify with) each answer until they get to the attributes of their core self.

  In an analogous manner, Schopenhauer tried on and discarded various self attributes until he arrived at what he considered his core self.

  When, at times, I felt unhappy it was because I took myself to be other than I was and then deplored that other person’s misery and distress. For example, I took myself to be a lecturer who does not become a professor and has no one to hear his lectures; or to be one about whom this Philistine speaks ill or that scandal monger gossips; or to be the lover who is not listened to by the girl with whom he is infatuated; or to be the patient who is kept home by illness; or to be other persons afflicted with similar miseries. I have not been any of these; all this is the stuff from which the coat has been made which I wore for a short time and which I then discarded in exchange for another.

  But, then, who am I? I am the man who has written The World as Will and Representation which has given a solution to the great problem of existence which perhaps will render obsolete all previous solutions…. I am that man, and what could disturb him in the few years in which he has still to draw breath.

  A related soothing strategy was his conviction that sooner or later, probably after his death, his work would become known and would drastically alter the course of philosophic inquiry. He first began expressing this opinion early in life, and his belief in ultimate success never wavered. In this he was similar to both Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, two other independent and unappreciated thinkers who were entirely (and correctly) convinced that they would have posthumous fame.

  He eschewed any supernatural consolations, embracing only those based on a naturalistic worldview. For example, he believed that pain ensues from the error of assuming that many of life’s exigencies are accidental and, hence, avoidable. Far better to realize the truth: that pain and suffering are inevitable, inescapable, and essential to life—“that nothing but the mere form in which it manifests itself depends on chance, and that our present suffering fills a place…which, without it, would be occupied by some other suffering. If such a reflection were to become a living conviction, it might produce a considerable degree of stoical equanimity.”

  He urged us to live and experience life now rather than live for the “hope” of some future good. Two generations later Nietzsche would take up this call. He considered hope our greatest scourge and pilloried Plato, Socrates, and Christianity for focusing our attention away from the only life that we have and toward some future illusory world.

  36

  * * *

  Where are there any real monogamists? We all live for a time and, most of us, always, in polygamy. And since every man needs many women, there is nothing fairer than to make it incumbent upon him to provide for many women. This will reduce woman to her true and natural position as a subordinate being.

  * * *

  Pam opened the next meeting. “I’ve got something to announce today.”

  All heads turned toward her.

  “Today is confession time. Go ahead, Tony.”

  Tony bolted upright, stared at Pam for a long moment, then leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes. If he had been wearing a fedora, he would have pushed it down over his face.

  Pam, surmising that Tony had no intention of commenting, continued in her clear bold voice, “Tony and I have been sexually involved for a while, and it’s hard for me to keep coming here and be silent about it.”

  After a short charged silence came stuttered questions: “Why?” “What started this?” “How long?” “How could you?” “Where is it going?”

  Quickly, coolly, Pam responded, “It’s been going on for several weeks. I don’t know about the future, don’t know what started it; it wasn’t premeditated but just happened one evening after a meeting.”

  “You going to join us today, Tony?” Rebecca asked gently.

  Tony slowly opened his eyes. “It’s all news to me.”

  “News? You saying that this is not true?”

  “No. I mean confession day. This ‘go ahead, Tony’—that was news to me.”

  “You don’t look happy about it,” said Stuart.

  Tony turned to address Pam: “I mean, I was over at your place last night. Being intimate, you know. Intimacy—how many time have I heard here that broads are more sensitive and want more intimacy than plain old sexual intimacy? So why not be intimate enough to talk to me, to run this ‘confession day’ by me first?”

  “Sorry,” Pam said, without sounding sorry, “things weren’t sitting right with me. After you left I was up much of the night brooding and thinking about the group, and I realized time was too short—we’ve got only six more meeting left. Am I counting right, Julius?”

  “Right. Six more meetings.”

  “Well, it just hit me how much I was betraying you, Julius. And my contract here with everyone else. And betraying myself, too.”

  “I never put it all together,”
said Bonnie, “but I’ve had a feeling that something wasn’t right the last several meetings. You’ve been different, Pam. I remember Rebecca sensing that more than once. You rarely talk about your own issues—I have no idea what’s going on between you and John or whether your ex-husband’s in the picture or not. Mostly what you’ve been doing is attacking Philip.”

  “And Tony, you too,” added Gill. “Now that I think about it, you’ve been real different. You’ve been hiding out. I’ve missed the old free-swinging Tony.”

  “I’ve got some thoughts here,” said Julius. “First, something Pam touched off with her use of the word contract. I know this is repetitious, but it bears repeating for any of you who may be in a group in the future”—Julius glanced at Philip—“or even lead a group. The only contract any of us have is to do our best to explore our relationship with everyone in the group. The danger of an out-of-group relationship is that it jeopardizes the therapy work. How does it do that? Because people in a tight relationship will often value that relationship more than the therapy work. Look, it’s precisely what’s happened here: not only have Pam and Tony hidden their own relationship—that’s understandable—but as a result of their personal involvement they’ve backed off from their therapy work here.”

  “Until today,” said Pam.

  “Absolutely, until today—and I applaud what you’ve done, and applaud your decision to bring it to the group. You know what my question’s going to be for both you and Tony: why now? You’ve known each other in the group about two and a half years. Yet now things change. Why? What happened a few weeks ago that prompted the decision to get together sexually?”

  Pam turned to Tony, raising her eyebrows, cueing him to answer. He complied. “Gentlemen first? My turn again? No problem; I know exactly what changed: Pam crooked her finger and signaled ‘okay.’ I’ve had a perpetual hard-on for her since we started, and if she’d crooked her finger six months ago or two years ago I would’ve come then too. Call me ‘Mister Available.’”

  “Hey, that’s the Tony I know and love,” said Gill. “Welcome back.”

  “It’s not hard to figure out why you’ve been different, Tony,” said Rebecca. “You’re getting it on with Pam, and you didn’t want to do anything to screw it up. It’s reasonable. So you hide out, cautious about showing any of your not-so-nice parts.”

  “The jungle part, you mean?” said Tony. “Maybe, maybe not—it’s not all that simple.”

  “Meaning?” asked Rebecca.

  “Meaning the ‘not-so-nice part’ is a turn-on for Pam. But I don’t want to get into that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Come on, Rebecca, it’s obvious. Why are you putting me on the spot? If I keep talking like this, I can kiss my relationship with Pam good-bye.”

  “You sure?” persisted Rebecca.

  “What do you think? I figure her bringing it up at all in the group says it’s a done deal, that she’s made up her mind. It’s getting warm here—hot seat’s getting hot.”

  Julius repeated his question to Pam about the timing of her affair with Tony, to which Pam was uncharacteristically tentative. “I can’t get perspective on it. I’m too close. I do know that there wasn’t any forethought, no planning—it was an impulsive act. We were having coffee after a meeting, just the two of us, because all you guys went off in your own direction. He invited me to get some dinner—he’s done that often, but this time I suggested he come to my place and have some homemade soup. He did, and things got out of hand. Why that day and not earlier? I can’t say. We’ve hung out together in the past: I’ve talked to Tony about literature, given him books to read, encouraged him to go back to school, and he’s taught me about woodwork and helped me build a TV stand, a small table. You’ve all known that. Why it got sexual now? I don’t know.”

  “Are you okay about trying to find out? I know it’s not easy to talk about something so intimate in the presence of a lover,” said Julius.

  “I’ve come here resolved to work today.”

  “Good, here’s the question: think back to the group—what were the important things going on when this began?”

  “Since I returned from India, two things have loomed large. Your health is number one. I once read a crackpot article stating that people pair in groups in the unconscious hope their offspring will provide a new leader, but that’s far out. Julius, I don’t know about how your illness might have prompted me to get more involved with Tony. Maybe the fear of the group ending caused me to seek a more personal permanent bond; maybe I irrationally thought this might keep the group continuing after the year. I’m guessing.”

  “Groups,” said Julius, “are like people: they don’t want to die. Perhaps your relationship with Tony was a convoluted way to keep it alive. All therapy groups try to continue, to have regular reunions—but they rarely do so. Like I’ve said many times here, the group is not life; it’s a dress rehearsal for life. We’ve all got to find a way to transfer what we learn here to our life in the real world. End of lecture.

  “But, Pam,” Julius continued, “you mentioned two things loom large: one was my health and the other was…”

  “It’s Philip. I’ve been preoccupied with him. I hate that he’s here. You’ve said that his presence may ultimately be a boon to me, and I trust you, but so far he’s been nothing but a blight, with maybe one exception; I’m so caught up in my hatred for him that my preoccupation with Earl and John has vanished. And I don’t think it’s coming back.”

  “So,” Julius persisted, “so Philip looms large. Is it possible that Philip’s presence plays some role in the timing of your affair with Tony?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “Any hunches?”

  Pam shook her head. “I don’t see it. I’d vote for sheer horniness. I haven’t been with a man for months. That’s rare for me. I think it’s no more complicated than that.”

  “Reactions?” Julius scanned the room.

  Stuart jumped in, his keen, orderly mind clicking. “There’s more than conflict between Pam and Philip—there’s a lot of competition. Maybe I’m stretching it, but here’s my theory: Pam always had a key place, a central position, in the group—the professor, the erudite one, the one who took Tony in hand to educate him. So, what happens? She goes away for a few weeks and returns to find Philip squatting in her place. I think this was disorienting.” Stuart turned to Pam. “Whatever other grievances you had about him from fifteen years ago got compounded.”

  “And the connection to Tony?” asked Julius.

  “Well, that might have been one way of competing. If my recollections are right, it was around then that Pam and Philip both tried to give you comforting gifts. Philip passed out that story about the ship stopping at an island, and I remember Tony got really caught up in the discussion.” He turned to Pam. “Maybe that was threatening to you; maybe you didn’t want to lose your influence over Tony.”

  “Thanks, Stuart, mighty enlightening,” shot back Pam. “Your point is that to compete with this zombie I have to fuck all the guys in the group! That’s your view of women’s abilities?”

  “That’s going to encourage feedback,” said Gill, “and that zombie crack is out of line. I prefer Philip’s even-mindedness over hysterical name-calling any day! Pam, you are one angry lady. Can you be anything else but mad?”

  “Those are strong feelings, Gill. What’s happening?” asked Julius.

  “I think I see a lot of my wife in this new angry Pam, and I’m determined not to let any vicious stuff pass—from either of them.”

  Then Gill added, “And there’s something else. I think I’m miffed at continuing to be so invisible to Pam.” He turned to her. “I’m being personal and upfront with you; I’ve let you know what I’m feeling about you, I tell you how I see you as the chief justice, but nothing registers—I still don’t matter. You only got eyes for Philip…and Tony. And I think I’m giving you important stuff—and here’s another piece: I think I know why your John bailed
out: it wasn’t because he was a coward; it was because of your rage.”

  Pam, lost in thought, remained silent.

  “There are lots of powerful feelings coming out. Let’s keep looking at them and try to understand them. Ideas?” asked Julius.

  “I admire Pam’s honesty today,” said Bonnie, “and I can understand how raw she feels. I also appreciate Gill taking her on. That’s an amazing change for you, Gill, and I applaud it, but sometimes I wish you’d let Philip defend himself. I don’t understand why he doesn’t.” She turned to Philip. “Why don’t you?”

  Philip shook his head and remained silent.

  “If he won’t speak, I’ll answer for him,” said Pam. “He’s following instructions from Arthur Schopenhauer.” She took a note from her purse, scanned it, and read:

  Speak without emotion.

  Don’t be spontaneous.

  Remain independent of others.

  Think of yourself as living in a town in which you have the only watch that keeps time—it will serve you well.

  To disregard is to win regard.

  Philip nodded appreciatively and replied, “I approve of your reading material. Sounds like pretty good advice to me.”

  “What’s going on?” asked Stuart.

  “Doing a little browsing in Schopenhauer,” said Pam, holding up her notes.

  After a silence, Rebecca broke the impasse. “Tony, where are you? What’s going on with you?”