Ирвин Ялом - The Schopenhauer Cure
weaker; she`d bring in his meals, wash him with a warm towel,
powder him, change his sheets, and crawl into his bed and hold
him through the night. There`s something surreal about the group
now—all these little dramas being played out against the darkening
horizon of Julius`s end. How unfair that he should be the one who
is dying. A surge of anger rose within—but at whom could she
direct it?
As Pam turned off her bedside reading light and waited for
her sleeping pill to kick in, she took note of the one advantage to
the new tumult in her life: the obsession with John, which had
vanished during her Vipassana training and returned immediately
after leaving India, was gone again—perhaps for good.
28
Pessimism as a Way of Life
_________________________
No rose without
a thorn. But
many a thorn
without a rose.
_________________________
Schopenhauer`s major work,The World as Will and
Representation, written during his twenties, was published in 1818,
and a second supplementary volume in 1844. It is a work of
astonishing breadth and depth, offering penetrating observations
about logic, ethics, epistemology, perception, science,
mathematics, beauty, art, poetry, music, the need for metaphysics,
and man`s relationship to others and to himself. The human
condition is presented in all its bleakest aspects: death, isolation,
the meaninglessness of life, and the suffering inherent in existence.
Many scholars believe that, with the single exception of Plato,
there are more good ideas in Schopenhauer`s work than in that of
any other philosopher.
Schopenhauer frequently expressed the wish, and the
expectation, that he would always be remembered for this grand
opus. Late in life he published his other significant work, a two–volume set of philosophical essays and aphorisms, whose book
title,Parerga and Paralipomena, means (in translation from the
Greek) «leftover and complementary works.»
Psychotherapy had not yet been born during Arthur`s
lifetime, yet there is much in his writing that is germane to therapy.
His major work began with a critique and extension of Kant, who
revolutionized philosophy through his insight that we constitute
rather than perceive reality. Kant realized that all of our sense data
are filtered through our neural apparatus and reassembled therein
to provide us with a picture that we call reality but which in fact is
only a chimera, a fiction that emerges from our conceptualizing
and categorizing mind. Indeed, even cause and effect, sequence,
quantity, space, and time are conceptualizations, constructs, not
entities «out there» in nature.
Furthermore, we cannot «see» past our processed version of
what`s out there; we have no way of knowing what is «really»
there—that is, the entity that exists prior to our perceptual and
intellectual processing. That primary entity, which Kant calledding
an sich (the thing in itself), will and must remain forever
unknowable to us.
Though Schopenhauer agreed that we can never know the
«thing in itself,” he believed we can get closer to it than Kant had
thought. In his opinion, Kant had overlooked a major source of
available information about the perceived (the phenomenal)
world:our own bodies ! Bodies are material objects. They exist in
time and space. And each of us has an extraordinarily rich
knowledge of our bodies—knowledge stemmingnot from our
perceptual and conceptual apparatus but direct knowledge from
inside, knowledge stemming from feelings.
From our bodies we gain knowledge that we cannot
conceptualize and communicate because the greater part of our
inner lives is unknown to us. It is repressed and not permitted to
break into consciousness, because knowing our deeper natures (our
cruelty, fear, envy, sexual lust, aggression, self–seeking) would
cause us more disturbance than we could bear.
Sound familiar? Sound like that old Freudian stuff—the
unconscious, primitive process, the id, repression, self–deception?
Are these not the vital germs, the primordial origins, of the
psychoanalytic endeavor? Keep in mind that Arthur`s major work
was published forty years before Freud`s birth. When Freud (and
Nietzsche as well) were schoolboys in the middle of the nineteenth
century, Arthur Schopenhauer was Germany`s most widely read
philosopher.
How do we understand these unconscious forces? How do
we communicate them to others? Though they cannot be
conceptualized, they can be experienced and, in Schopenhauer`s
opinion, conveyed directly, without words, through the arts. Hence
he was to devote more attention to the arts, and particularly to
music, than any other philosopher.
And sex? He left no doubt about his belief that sexual
feelings played a crucial role in human behavior. Here, again, he
was an intrepid pioneer: no prior philosopher had the insight (or
the courage) to write about the seminal importance of sex to our
internal life.
And religion? Schopenhauer was the first major philosopher
to construct his thought upon an atheistic foundation. He explicitly
and vehemently denied the supernatural, arguing instead that we
live entirely in space and time and that all nonmaterial entities are
false and unnecessary constructs. Though many others, Hobbes,
Hume, even Kant, may have had agnostic leanings, none dared to
be explicit about their nonbelief. For one thing, they were
dependent for their livelihood upon the states and universities
employing them and, hence, forbidden to express any antireligious
sentiments. Arthur was never employed nor needed to be and was
free to write as he wished. For precisely the same reason, Spinoza,
a century and a half earlier, refused offers of exalted university
positions, remaining instead a grinder of lenses.
And the conclusions that Schopenhauer reached from his
inside knowledge of the body? That there is in us, and in all of
nature, a relentless, insatiable, primal life force which he
termedwill. «Every place we look in life,” he wrote, «we see
striving that represents the kernel and вЂin–itself` of everything.»
What is suffering? It is «hindrance to this striving by an obstacle
placed in the path between the will and its goal.» What is
happiness, well–being? It is «attainment of the goal.»
We want, we want, we want, we want. There are ten needs
waiting in the wings of the unconscious for every one that reaches
awareness. The will drives us relentlessly because, once a need is
satisfied, it is soon replaced by another need and another and
another throughout our life.
Schopenhauer sometimes invokes the myth of the wheel of
Ixion or the myth of Tantalus to describe the dilemma of human
existence. Ixion was a king who was disloyal to Zeus and punished
by being bound to a fiery wheel which revolved in perpetuity.
Tantalus, who dared to defy Zeus, was punished for his hubris by
being eternally tempted but never satisfied. Human life,
Schopenhauer thought, eternally revolves around an axle of need
followed by satiation. Are we contented by the satiation? Alas,
only briefly. Almost immediately boredom sets in, and once again
we are propelled into motion, this time to escape from the terrors
of boredom.
Work, worry, toil and trouble are certainly the lot of almost all
throughout their lives. But if all desires were fulfilled as soon
as they arose, how then would people occupy their lives and
spend their time? Suppose the human race were removed to
Utopia where everything grew automatically and pigeons flew
about ready–roasted; where everyone at once found his
sweetheart and had no difficulty in keeping her; then people
would die of boredom or hang themselves; or else they would
fight, throttle, and murder one another and so cause themselves
more suffering than is now laid upon them by nature.
And what is the most terrible thing about boredom? Why do
we rush to dispel it? Because it is a distraction–free state which
soon enough reveals underlying unpalatable truths about
existence—our insignificance, our meaningless existence, our
inexorable progression to deterioration and death.
Hence, what is human life other than an endless cycle of
wanting, satisfaction, boredom, and then wanting again? Is that
true for all life–forms? Worse for humans, says Schopenhauer,
because as intelligence increases, so does the intensity of suffering.
So is anyone ever happy? Can anyone ever be happy? Arthur
does not think so.
In the first place a man never is happy but spends his whole life
in striving after something which he thinks will make him so;
he seldom attains his goal and, when he does it is only to be
disappointed: he is mostly shipwrecked in the end, and comes
into harbor with masts and riggings gone. And then it is all one
whether he has been happy or miserable; for his life was never
anything more than a present moment, always vanishing; and
now it is over.
Life, consisting of an inevitable tragic downward slope, is
not only brutal but entirely capricious.
We are like lambs playing in the field, while the butcher eyes
them and selects first one then another; for in our good days we
do not know what calamity fate at this very moment has in
store for us, sickness, persecution, impoverishment, mutilation,
loss of sight, madness, and death.
Are Arthur Schopenhauer`s pessimistic conclusions about
the human condition so unbearable that he was plunged into
despair? Or was it the other way around? Was it his unhappiness
that caused him to conclude that human life was a sorry affair best
not to have arisen in the first place? Aware of this conundrum,
Arthur often reminded us (and himself) that emotion has the power
to obscure and falsify knowledge: that the whole world assumes a
smiling aspect when we have reason to rejoice, and a dark and
gloomy one when sorrow weighs upon us.
29
_________________________
I have not
written for the
crowd.... I hand
down my work to
the thinking
individuals who
in the course
of time will
appear as rare
exceptions.
They will feel
as I felt, or
as a
shipwrecked
sailor feels on
a desert island
for whom the
trace of a
former fellow
sufferer
affords more
consolation
than do all the
cockatoos and
apes in the
trees.
_________________________
«I`d like to continue where we left off,” said Julius, opening the
next meeting. Speaking stiffly, as though from a prepared text, he
rushed on, «Like most therapists I know, I`m pretty open about
myself to close friends. It`s not easy for me to come up with a
revelation as raw and pristine and right out there on the edge as
those some of you have shared recently. But there is an incident
I`ve revealed only once in my life—and that was years ago to a
very close friend.»
Pam, sitting next to Julius, interrupted. Putting her hand on
his arm, she said, «Whoa, whoa, Julius.You don`t need to do this.
You`ve been bullied into this by Philip, and now, after Tony
exposed his bullshit motives, even Philip has apologized for
requesting it. I, for one, don`t want you to put yourself through
this.»
Others agreed, pointing out that Julius shared his feelings all
the time in the group and that Philip`s I–thou contract was a setup.
Gill added, «Things are getting blurred here. All of us are
here for help. My life`s a mess—you saw that last week. But so far
as I know, Julius,you`re not having problems with intimacy. So
what`s the point?»
«The other week,” Rebecca said, in her clipped precise
speech, «you said I revealed myself in order to give Philip a gift.
That was partially correct—but not the whole truth: now I realize I
also wanted to shield him from Pam`s rage. However, that said, my
point is...whatis my point? My point is that confessing what I did
in Las Vegas was good therapy for me—I`m relieved to have
gotten it out. But you`re here to help me, and it`s not going to help
me one bit for you to reveal yourself.»
Julius was taken aback—such strong consensus was an
oddity in this group. But he thought he knew what was happening.
«I sense a lot of concern about my illness—a lot of taking care of
me, not wanting to stress me. Right?»
«Maybe,” said Pam, «but for me there`s more—there`s
something in me that doesn`twant you to divulge something dark
from your past.»
Julius noted others signaling agreement and said, to no one
in particular: «What a paradox. Ever since I`ve been in this field
I`ve heard an ongoing chorus of complaints from patients that
therapists were too distant and shared too little of their personal
lives. So here I am, on the brink of doing just that, and I`m greeted
by a united front saying, вЂWe don`t want to hear. Don`t do this.` So
what`s going on?»
Silence.
«You want to see me as untarnished?» asked Julius.
No one responded. «We seem stuck, so I`ll be ornery today
and just continue and we`ll see what happens. My story goes back
ten years ago to the time of my wife`s death. I had married Miriam,
my high school sweetheart, while I was in medical school, and ten
years ago she was killed in a car crash in Mexico. I was devastated.
To tell the truth, I`m not sure I`ve ever recovered from the horror
of that event. But to my surprise, my grief took a bizarre turn: I
experienced a tremendous surge in sexual energy. At that time I
didn`t know that heightened sexuality is a common response to
confrontation with death. Since then I`ve seen many people in grief
become suffused with sexual energy. I`ve spoken with men who`ve
had catastrophic coronaries and tell me that they groped female
attendants while careening to the ER in an ambulance. In my grief,
I grew obsessed by sex, needed it—a lot of it—and when our
friends, both married and unmarried women, sought to comfort me,
I exploited the situation and took sexual advantage of some of
them, including a relative of Miriam`s.»
The group was still. Everyone was uneasy, avoided locking
gazes; some listened to the shrill chirping of a finch sitting in the
scarlet Japanese maple outside the window. From time to time over
many years of leading groups Julius had wished he had a
cotherapist. This was one of those times.
Finally, Tony forced some words out: «So, what happened to
