The Schopenhauer Cure (36 page)

Authors: Irvin Yalom

Tags: #Fiction, #General

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

interview 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?

_________________________

Even
when there

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?"