The Schopenhauer Cure(87)
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?
31
How Arthur Lived
* * *
Even when there is no 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.