The Schopenhauer Cure(101)
The group remained silent. After several moments Pam turned to Philip. “You want to know the reason you felt understood by Schopenhauer and not Julius? I’ll tell you why: because Schopenhauer is dead, dead over one hundred and forty years, and Julius is alive. And you don’t know how to relate to the living.”
Philip did not look as though he would respond, and Rebecca rushed in, “Pam, you’re being vicious. What will it take to appease you?”
“Philip’s not evil, Pam,” said Bonnie, “he’s broken. Can’t you see that? Don’t you know the difference?”
Pam shook her head and said, “I can’t go any farther today.”
After a palpably uncomfortable silence Tony, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, intervened. “Philip, I’m not pulling a rescue here, but I’ve been wondering something. Have you had any follow-up feelings to Julius’s telling us a few months ago about his sexual stuff after his wife died?”
Philip seemed grateful for the diversion. “What feelings should I have?”
“I don’t know about the ‘should.’ I’m just asking what you did feel. Here’s what I’m wondering: when you were first seeing him in therapy, would you have felt Julius understood you more if he revealed that he too had personal experience with sexual pressure?”
Philip nodded. “That’s an interesting question. The answer is, maybe, yes. It might have helped. I have no proof, but Schopenhauer’s writings suggest that he had sexual feelings similar to mine in intensity and relentlessness. I believe that’s why I felt so understood by him.
“But there’s something I’ve omitted in talking about my work with Julius, and I want to set the record straight. When I told him that his therapy had failed to be of value to me in any way, he confronted me with the same question raised in the group a little while ago: why would I want such an unhelpful therapist for a supervisor? His question helped me recall a couple of things from our therapy that stuck with me and had, in fact, proved useful.”
“Like what?” asked Tony.
“When I described my typical routinized evening of sexual seduction—flirtation, pickup, dinner, sexual consummation—and asked him whether he was shocked or disgusted, he responded only that it seemed like an exceptionally boring evening. That response shocked me. It got me realizing how much I had arbitrarily infused my repetitive patterns with excitement.”
“And the other thing that stuck with you?” asked Tony.
“Julius once asked what epitaph I might request for my tombstone. When I didn’t come up with anything, he offered a suggestion: ‘He fucked a lot.’ And then he added that the same epitaph could serve for my dog as well.”
Some members whistled or smiled. Bonnie said, “That’s mean, Julius.”
“No,” Philip said, “it wasn’t said in a mean way—he meant to shock me, to wake me up. And it did stick with me, and I think it played a role in my decision to change my life. But I guess I wanted to forget these incidents. Obviously, I don’t like acknowledging that he’s been helpful.”
“Do you know why?” asked Tony.
“I’ve been thinking about it. Perhaps I feel competitive. If he wins, I lose. Perhaps I don’t want to acknowledge that his approach to counseling, so different from mine, works. Perhaps I don’t want to get too close to him. Perhaps she,” Philip nodded toward Pam, “is right: I can’t relate to a living person.”
“At least not easily,” said Julius. “But you’re getting closer.”
And so the group continued over the next several weeks: perfect attendance, hard productive work, and, aside from repeated anxious inquiries into Julius’s health and the ongoing tension between Pam and Philip, the group felt trusting, intimate, optimistic, even serene. No one was prepared for the bombshell about to hit the group.
35
Self-Therapy
* * *
When a man like me is born there remains only one thing to be desired from without—that throughout the whole of his life he can as much as possible be himself and live for his intellectual powers.
* * *
More than anything else, the autobiographical “About Me” is a dazzling compendium of self-therapy strategies that helped Schopenhauer stay afloat psychologically. Though some strategies, devised in anxiety storms at 3 A.M. and rapidly discarded at dawn, were fleeting and ineffective, others proved to be enduring bulwarks of support. Of these, the most potent was his unswerving lifelong belief in his genius.
Even in my youth I noticed in myself that, whereas others strived for external possessions, I did not have to turn to such things because I carried within me a treasure infinitely more valuable than all external possessions; and the main thing was to enhance the treasure for which mental development and complete independence are the primary conditions…. Contrary to nature and the rights of man, I had to withdraw my powers from the advancement of my own well-being, in order to devote them to the service of mankind. My intellect belonged not to me but to the world.
The burden of his genius, he said, made him more anxious and uneasy than he already was by virtue of his genetic makeup. For one thing, the sensibility of geniuses causes them to suffer more pain and anxiety. In fact, Schopenhauer persuades himself, there is a direct relationship between anxiety and intelligence. Hence, not only do geniuses have an obligation to use their gift for mankind, but, because they are meant to devote themselves entirely to the fulfilling of their mission, they were compelled to forego the many satisfactions (family, friends, home, accumulation of wealth) available to other humans.