The Schopenhauer Cure(102)
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.