The Schopenhauer Cure (12 page)

With that, Gill flopped back in his chair, exhausted.

The members--Tony, Rebecca, Bonnie, and Stuart--broke out into a chorus of approval: "Great, Gill." "About time, Gill." "Wow, you really did it." "Whoa, good move." Tony said, "I can't tell you how glad I am that you tore yourself loose from that bitch." "If you need a bed," said Bonnie, nervously running her hands through her frizzy brown hair and adjusting her goggle-shaped, yellow-tinted spectacles, "I've got a spare room. Don't worry, you're safe," she added with a giggle, "I'm far too old for you and my daughter's home."

Julius, not happy with the pressure the group was applying (he had seen too many members drop out of too many therapy groups because they were ashamed of disappointing the group), made his first intervention, "Strong feedback you're getting, Gill. How do you feel about it?"

"Great. It feels great. Only I...I don't want to disappoint everybody. This is happening so fast--this all just happened this morning...I'm shaky and I'm fluid...don't know what I'm going to do."

"You mean," said Julius, "you don't want to substitute your wife's imperatives with the group's imperatives."

"Yeah. I guess. Yeah, I see what you mean. Right. But it's a mixed bag. I really want, really really need this encouragement...grateful for it...I need guidance--this may be a turning point in my life. Heard from everyone but you, Julius. And of course from our new member. Philip, is it?"

Philip nodded.

"Philip, I know you don't know about my situation, but
you
do." Gill turned to face Julius. "What about it? What do
you
think I should do?"

Julius involuntarily flinched and hoped it had not been visible. Like most therapists, he hated that question--the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" question.

He had seen it coming.

"Gill, you're not going to like my answer. But here it is. I can't tell you what to do: that's your job, your decision, not mine. One reason you're here in this group is to learn to trust your own judgment. Another reason is that everything I know about Rose and your marriage has come to me through you. And you can't avoid giving me biased information. What I can do is help you focus on how you contribute to your life predicament. We can't understand or change Rose; it's
you
--your feelings, your behavior--that's what counts here because
that's
what you can change."

The group fell silent. Julius was right; Gill did not like that answer. Neither did the other members.

Rebecca, who had taken out two barrettes and was flouncing her long black hair before replacing them, broke the silence by turning to Philip. "You're new here and don't know the backstory that the rest of us know. But sometimes from the mouth of newborn babes...."

Philip sat silent. It was unclear whether he had even heard Rebecca.

"Yeah, you have a take on this, Philip?" said Tony, in what was, for him, an unusually gentle tone. Tony was a swarthy man with deep acne scars on his cheeks and a lean, graceful athletic body exhibited to good advantage in his black San Francisco Giants T-shirt and tight jeans.

"I have an observation and a piece of advice," said Philip, hands folded, head tilted back, and eyes fixed on the ceiling. "Nietzsche once wrote that a major difference between man and the cow was that the cow knew how to exist, how to live without angst--that is,
fear
--in the blessed now, unburdened by the past and unaware of the terrors of the future. But we unfortunate humans are so haunted by the past and future that we can only saunter briefly in the now. Do you know why we so yearn for the golden days of childhood? Nietzsche tells us it's because those childhood days were the carefree days, days
free of care,
days before we were weighted down by leaden, painful memories, by the debris of the past. Allow me to make one marginal note: I refer to a Nietzsche essay, but this thought was not original--in this, as in so much else, he looted the works of Schopenhauer."

He paused. A loud silence rang out in the group. Julius squirmed in his chair, thinking, Oh shit, I must have been out of my fucking mind to bring this guy here. This is the goddamnedest, most bizarre way I've ever seen a patient come into a group.

Bonnie broke the silence. Turning her gaze squarely upon him, she said, "That's fascinating, Philip. I know I keep yearning for my childhood, but I never understood it that way, that childhood feels free and golden because there's no past to weigh you down.

Thanks, I'm going to remember that."

"Me too. Interesting stuff," said Gill. "But you said you had advice for me?"

"Yes, here's my advice." Philip spoke evenly, softly, still making no eye contact.

"Your wife is one of those people who is particularly unable to live in the present because she is so heavily laden with the freight of the past. She is a sinking ship. She's going down. My advice to you is to jump overboard and start swimming. She'll produce a powerful wake when she goes under, so I urge you to swim away as fast and as hard as you can."

Silence. The group seemed stunned.

"Hey, no one is going to accuse you," said Gill, "of pulling your punches. I asked a question. You gave an answer. I appreciate that. A lot. Welcome to the group. Any other comments you got--I want to hear them."

"Well," said Philip, still looking upward, "in that case let me add one additional thought. Kierkegaard described some individuals as being in 'double despair,' that is, they are in despair but too self-deceived to know even that they are in despair. I think you may be in double despair. Here's what I mean: most of my own suffering is a result of my being driven by desires, and then, once I satisfy a desire, I enjoy a moment of satiation, which soon is transformed into boredom, which is then interrupted by another desire springing up. Schopenhauer felt this was the universal human condition--wanting, momentary satiation, boredom, further wanting.

"Back to you--I question whether you've yet explored this cycle of endless desires within yourself. Perhaps you've been so preoccupied with your wife's wishes it's kept you from becoming acquainted with your own desires? Isn't that why others here were applauding you today? Wasn't it because you were finally refusing to be defined by her wishes? In other words, I'm asking whether your work on yourself has been delayed or derailed by your preoccupation with your wife's wishes."

Gill listened, mouth gaping, gaze fixed on Philip. "That's deep. I know there's something deep and important in what you're saying--in this double despair idea--but I'm not getting it all."

All eyes were now on Philip, who continued to have eyes only for the ceiling.

"Philip," said Rebecca, now finished with replacing her barrettes, "weren't you saying that Gill's personal work won't really begin until he liberates himself from his wife?"

"Or," Tony said, "that his involvement with her prevents him from knowing how fucked-up he really is? Hell, I know this is true for me and the way I relate to my work--

I been thinking this past week that I'm so busy being ashamed of being a carpenter--

being blue-collar, being low-income, being looked down on--that I never get around to thinking about the real shit I should be dealing with."

Julius watched in amazement as others, thirsty for Philip's every word, chimed in.

He felt competitive urges rising but quelled them by reminding himself that the group's purposes were being served.
Cool it, Julius,
he said to himself,
the group needs you; they're not going to desert you for Philip. What's going on here is great; they are assimilating the new member, and they are also each laying out agendas for future work.

He had planned to talk about his diagnosis in the group today. In a sense his hand was now forced because he had already told Philip he had a melanoma and, to avoid the impression of a special relationship with him, had to share it with the whole group. But he had been preempted. First there was Gill's emergency, and then there was the group's total fascination with Philip. He checked the clock. Ten minutes left. Not enough time to lay this on them. Julius resolved that he would absolutely begin the next meeting with the bad news. He remained silent and let the clock run out.

12

1799--Arthur

Learns about

Choice and

Other Worldly

Horrors

_________________________

The
kings left their crowns and

scepters behind here, and the

heroes their weapons. Yet the

great spirits among them all,

whose splendor flowed out of

themselves,

who

did

not

receive

it

from

outward

things,

they

take

their

greatness across with them.

--Arthur Schopenhauer, age sixteen at

Westminster Abbey

_________________________

When the nine-year-old Arthur returned from Le Havre, his father placed him in a private school whose specific mandate was to educate future merchants. There he learned what good merchants of the time had to know: to calculate in different currencies, to write business letters in all the major European languages, to study transport routes, trade centers, yields of the soil, and other such fascinating topics. But Arthur was not fascinated; he had no interest in such knowledge, formed no close friendships at school, and dreaded more each day his father's plan for his future--a seven-year apprenticeship with a local business magnate.

What did Arthur want? Not the life of a merchant--he loathed the very idea. He craved the life of a scholar. Though many of his classmates also disliked the thought of a long apprenticeship, Arthur's protests ran far deeper. Despite his parents' strong admonitions--a letter from his mother instructed him to "put aside all these authors for a while...you are now fifteen and have already read and studied the best German, French and, in part, also English authors"--he spent all his available free time studying literature and philosophy.

Arthur's father, Heinrich, was tormented by his son's interests. The headmaster of Arthur's school had informed him that his son had a passion for philosophy, was exceptionally suited for the life of a scholar, and would do well to transfer to a gymnasium which would prepare him for the university. In his heart, Heinrich may have sensed the correctness of the schoolmaster's advice; his son's voracious consumption and comprehension of all works of philosophy, history, and literature in the extensive Schopenhauer library was readily apparent.

What was Heinrich to do? At stake was his successor, as well as the future of the entire firm and his filial obligation to all his ancestors to maintain the Schopenhauer lineage. Moreover, he shuddered at the prospect of a male Schopenhauer subsisting on the limited income of a scholar.

First, Heinrich considered setting up a lifelong annuity through his church for his son, but the cost was prohibitive; business was bad, and Heinrich also had obligations to guarantee the financial future of a wife and daughter.

Then gradually a solution, a somewhat diabolical solution, began to form in his mind. For some time he had resisted Johanna's pleas for a lengthy tour of Europe. These were difficult times; the international political climate was so unstable that the safety of the Hanseatic cities was threatened and his constant attention to business was required.

Yet because of weariness and his yearning to shed the weight of business responsibilities, his resistance to Johanna's request was wavering. Slowly there swiveled into mind an inspired plan that would serve two purposes; his wife would be pleased, and the dilemma of Arthur's future would be resolved.

His decision was to offer his fifteen-year-old son a choice. "You must choose," he told him. "Either accompany your parents on a year's grand tour of all of Europe or pursue a career as a scholar. Either you give me a pledge that on the day you return from the journey you will begin your business apprenticeship
or
forego this journey, remain in Hamburg, and immediately transfer to a classical educational curriculum which will prepare you for the academic life."

Imagine a fifteen-year-old facing such a life-altering decision. Perhaps the ever-pedantic Heinrich was offering existential instruction. Perhaps he was teaching his son that alternatives exclude, that for every yes there must be a no. (Indeed, years later Arthur was to write, "He who would be everything cannot be anything.") Or was Heinrich exposing his son to a foretaste of renunciation, that is, if Arthur could not renounce the pleasure of the journey, how could he expect himself to renounce worldly pleasures and live the impecunious life of a scholar?

Perhaps we are being too charitable to Heinrich. Most likely his offer was disingenuous because he knew that Arthur would not, could not, refuse the trip. No fifteen-year-old could do that in 1803. At that time such a journey was a priceless once-in-a-lifetime event granted only to a privileged few. Before the days of photography, foreign places were known only through sketches, paintings, and published travel journals (a genre, incidentally, that Johanna Schopenhauer was later to exploit brilliantly).

Did Arthur feel he was selling his soul? Was he tormented by his decision? Of these matters history is silent. We know only that in 1803, in his fifteenth year, he set off with his father, mother, and a servant on a journey of fifteen months throughout all of western Europe and Great Britain. Adele, his six-year-old sister, was deposited with a relative in Hamburg.

Arthur recorded many impressions in his travel journals written, as his parents required, in the language of the country visited. His linguistic aptitude was prodigious; the fifteen-year-old Arthur was fluent in German, French, and English and had working knowledge of Italian and Spanish. Ultimately, he was to master a dozen modern and ancient languages, and it was his habit, as visitors to his memorial library have noted, to write his marginal notes in the language of each text.