The Schopenhauer Cure

A Novel

Irvin D. Yalom

To my community of older buddies who grace me with their friendship, share life`s

inexorable diminishments and losses, and continue to sustain me with their wisdom and

dedication to the life of the mind: Robert Berger, Murray Bilmes, Martel Bryant, Dagfinn

Føllesdahl, Joseph Frank, Van Harvey, Julius Kaplan, Herbert Kotz, Morton Lieberman,

Walter Sokel, Saul Spiro, and Larry Zaroff.

7

_________________________

If we look at life in its small

details, how ridiculous it all

seems. It is like a drop of

water seen through a micro–scope, a single drop teeming

with protozoa. How we laugh as

they bustle about so eagerly

and struggle with one another.

Whether here, or in the little

span of human life, this

terrible activity produces a

comic effect.

_________________________

At five minutes to seven Julius knocked out the ashes from his meerschaum pipe and

entered the auditorium in Toyon Hall. He took a seat in the fourth row on the side aisle

and looked about the amphitheater: Twenty rows rose sharply from the entry level where

the lecture podium stood. Most of the two hundred seats were vacant; roughly thirty were

broken and wrapped with yellow plastic ribbon. Two homeless men and their collections

of newspapers sprawled across seats in the last row. Approximately thirty seats were

occupied by unkempt students randomly sprinkled throughout the auditorium with the

exception of the first three rows which remained vacant.

Just like a therapy group, Julius thought, no one wants to sit near to the leader.

Even in his group meeting earlier that day the seats on either side of him had been left

vacant for the late members, and he had joked that a seat next to him seemed to be the

penalty for tardiness. Julius thought of the group therapy folklore about seating; that the

most dependent person sits to the leader`s right, whereas the most paranoid members sit

directly opposite; but, in his experience, the reluctance to sit next to the leader was the

only rule that could be counted on with regularity.

The shabbiness and dilapidation of Toyon Hall was typical of the entire campus of

California Coastal College, which had begun life as an evening business school, then

expanded and flowered briefly as an undergraduate college, and was now obviously in a

phase of entropy. On his walk to the lecture through the unsavory tenderloin, Julius had

found it difficult to distinguish unkempt students from homeless denizens of the

neighborhood. What teacher could avoid demoralization in this setting? Julius began to

understand why Philip wanted to switch careers by moving into clinical work.

He checked his watch. Seven o`clock exactly and right on cue Philip entered the

auditorium, dressed in the professorial uniform of checkered khaki pants, shirt, and a tan

corduroy jacket with sewed–on elbow patches. Extracting his lecture notes from a

properly scuffed briefcase and, without so much as a glance at his audience, he began:

This is the survey of Western philosophy—lecture eighteen—Arthur Schopenhauer.

Tonight I shall proceed differently and stalk my prey more indirectly. If I appear

desultory, I ask your forbearance—I promise I shall soon enough return to the matter

at hand. Let us begin by turning our attention to the great debuts in history.

Philip scanned his audience for some nod of comprehension and, failing to find it,

crooked his forefinger at one of the students sitting nearest him and pointed to the

blackboard. He then spelled out and defined three words,d–e–s–u–l–t–o–r–y, f–o–r–e–b–e–a–r–a-

n–c–e, andd–eb–u–t, which the student dutifully copied onto the blackboard. The student

started to return to his seat, but Philip pointed to a first–row seat, instructing him to

remain there.

Now for great debuts; trust me—my purpose for beginning in such a fashion will, in

time, become apparent. Imagine Mozart stunning the Viennese royal court as he

performed flawlessly on the harpsichord at the age of nine. Or, if Mozart does not

strike a familiar chord(here the faintest trace of a smile), imagine something more

familiar to you, the Beatles at nineteen playing their own compositions to Liverpool

audiences.

Other amazing debuts include the extraordinary debut of Johann Fichte.(Here a

signal to the student to write F–i–c–h–t–eon the board.) Does any one of you remember

his name from my last lecture in which I discussed the great German idealist

philosophers who followed Kant in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries:

Hegel, Schelling, and Fichte? Of these, Fichte`s life and his debut was the most

remarkable for he began life as a poor uneducated goose shepherd in Rammenau, a

small German village whose only claim to fame was its clergyman`s inspired sermons

every Sunday.

Well, one Sunday a wealthy aristocrat arrived at the village too late to hear the

sermon. As he stood, obviously disappointed, outside the church, an elderly villager

approached him and told him not to despair because the gooseherd, young Johann,

could repreach the sermon to him. The villager fetched Johann, who, indeed, repeated

the entire lecture verbatim. So impressed was the baron by the gooseherd`s

astoundingly retentive mind that he financed Johann`s education and arranged for him

to attend Pforta, a renowned boarding school later attended by many eminent German

thinkers, including the subject of our next lecture, Friedrich Nietzsche.

Johann excelled in school and later at the university, but when his patron died,

Johann had no means of support and took a tutoring job in a private home in Germany

where he was hired to teach a young man the philosophy of Kant, whom he had not

yet read himself. Soon he was entranced by the work of the divine Kant…

Philip suddenly looked up from his notes to survey his audience. Seeing no glint of

recognition in any eyes, he hissed at his audience:

Hello, anybody home? Kant, Immanuel Kant, Kant, Kant, remember?»(He motioned

to the blackboard scribe to write K–a–n–t.) We spent two hours on him last week?

Kant, the greatest, along with Plato, of all the world`s philosophers. I give you my

word: Kant will be on the final. Ah ha, there`s the ticket...I see stirrings of life,

movement, one or two eyes opening. A pen making contact with paper.

So where was I? Ah, yes. The gooseherd. Fichte was next tendered a position

as a private tutor in Warsaw and, penniless, walked all the way only to have the job

denied him when he arrived. Since he was only a few hundred miles from

Königsberg, the home of Kant, he decided to walk there to meet the master in person.

After two months he arrived at Königsberg and, audaciously, knocked on Kant`s door

but was not granted an audience. Kant was a creature of habit and not inclined to

receive unknown visitors. Last week I described to you the regularity of his

schedule—so exact that the townspeople could set their watches by seeing him on his

daily walk.

Fichte assumed he was refused entry because he had no letters of

recommendation and decided to write his own in order to gain an audience with Kant.

In an extraordinary burst of creative energy he wrote his first manuscript, the

renownedCritique of All Revelation, which applied Kant`s views on ethics and duty to

the interpretation of religion. Kant was so impressed with the work that he not only

agreed to meet with Fichte but encouraged its publication.

Because of some curious mishap, probably a marketing ploy of the publisher,

theCritique appeared anonymously. The work was so brilliant that critics and the

reading public mistook it for a new work by Kant himself. Ultimately, Kant was

forced to make a public statement that it was not he who was the author of this

excellent manuscript but a very talented young man named Fichte. Kant`s praise

ensured Fichte`s future in philosophy, and a year and a half thereafter he was offered

a professorship at the University of Jena.

«That,” Philip looked up from his notes with an ecstatic look on his face and then

jabbed the air with an awkward show of enthusiasm, «that is what I call a debut!» No

students looked up or gave a sign of registering Philip`s brief awkward display of

enthusiasm. If he felt discouraged by his audience`s unresponsiveness, Philip did not

show it and, unperturbed, continued:

And now consider something closer to your hearts—athletic debuts. Who can forget

the debut of Chris Evert, Tracy Austin, or Michael Chang, who won grand–slam

professional tennis tournaments at fifteen or sixteen? Or the teenaged chess prodigies

Bobby Fischer or Paul Morphy? Or think of JosГ© Raoul Capablanca, who won the

chess championship of Cuba at the age of eleven.

Finally, I want to turn to a literary debut—the most brilliant literary debut of all

time, a man in his midtwenties who blazed onto the literary landscape with a

magnificent novel…

Here, Philip stopped in order to build the suspense and looked up, his countenance

shining with confidence. He felt assured of what he was doing—that was apparent. Julius

watched in disbelief. What was Philip expecting to find? The students on the edge of their

seats, trembling with curiosity, each murmuring, «Who was this literary prodigy?»

Julius, in his fifth–row seat, swiveled his head to survey the auditorium: glazed

eyes everywhere, students slumped in chairs, doo–dling, poring over newspapers,

crossword puzzles. To the left, a student stretched out asleep over two chairs. To the

right, two students at the end of his row embraced in a long kiss. In the row directly in

front of him, two boys elbowed each other as they leered upward, toward the back of the

room. Despite his curiosity, Julius did not turn to follow their gaze—probably they were

staring up some woman`s skirt—and turned his attention back to Philip.

And who was the prodigy?(Philip droned on.) His name was Thomas Mann. When he

was your age, yes, your age, he began writing a masterpiece, a glorious novel

calledBuddenbrooks published when he was only twenty–six years old. Thomas

Mann, as I hope and pray you know, went on to become a towering figure in the

twentieth–century world of letters and was awarded the Nobel Prize for

Literature.»(Here Philip spelled M–a–n–nand B–u–d–d–e–n-

b–r–o–o–k–sto his blackboard scribe.) Buddenbrooks, published in 1901, traced the life

of one family, a German burgher family, through four generations and all the

associated vicissitudes of the life cycle.

Now what does this have to do with philosophy and with the real subject of

today`s lecture? As I promised, I have strayed a bit but only in the service of

returning to the core with greater vigor.

Julius heard rustling in the auditorium and the sound of footsteps. The two

elbowing voyeurs directly in front of Julius noisily collected their belongings and left the

hall. The embracing students at the end of the row had departed, and even the student

assigned to the blackboard had vanished.

Philip continued:

To me, the most remarkable passages inBuddenbrooks come late in the novel as the

protagonist, the paterfamilias, old Thomas Buddenbrooks, approaches death. One is

astounded by a writer in his early twenties having such insight and such sensibility to

issues concerned with the end of life.(A faint smile played on his lips as Philip held

up the dog–eared book.) I recommend these pages to anyone intending to die.

Julius heard the strike of matches as two students lit cigarettes while exiting the

auditorium.

When death came to claim him, Thomas Buddenbrooks was bewildered and

overcome by despair. None of his belief systems offered him comfort—neither his

religious views which had long before failed to satisfy his metaphysical needs, nor his

worldly skepticism and materialistic Darwinian leaning. Nothing, in Mann`s words,

was able to offer the dying man «in the near and penetrating eye of death a single

hour of calm.»

Here, Philip looked up. «What happened next is of great importance and it is here

that I begin to close in on the designated subject of our lecture tonight.»

In the midst of his desperation Thomas Buddenbrooks chanced to draw from his

bookcase an inexpensive, poorly sewn volume of philosophy bought at a used book

stand years before. He began to read and was immediately soothed. He marveled by

how, as Mann put it, «a master–mind could lay hold of this cruel mocking thing called

life.»

The extraordinary clarity of vision in the volume of philosophy enthralled the

dying man, and hours passed without his looking up from his reading. Then he came

upon a chapter titled «On Death, and Its Relation to Our Personal Immortality» and,

intoxicated by the words, read on as though he were reading for his very life. When

he finished, Thomas Buddenbrooks was a man transformed, a man who had found the

comfort and peace that had eluded him.

What was it that the dying man discovered?(At this point Philip suddenly

adopted an oracular voice.) Now listen well, Julius Hertzfeld, because this may be

useful for life`s final examination....

Shocked at being directly addressed in a public lecture, Julius bolted upright in his

seat. He glanced nervously about him and saw, to his astonishment, that the auditorium

was empty: everyone, even the two homeless men, had left.

But Philip, unperturbed by his vanished audience, calmly continued:

I`ll read a passage fromBuddenbrooks. (He opened a tattered paperback copy of the

book.) «Your assignment is to read the novel, especially part nine, with great care. It

will prove invaluable to you—far more valuable than attempting to extract meaning

from patients` reminiscences of long ago.

Have I hoped to live on in my son? In a personality yet more feeble, flickering, and

timorous than my own? Blind, childish folly! What can my son do for me? Where

shall I be when I am dead? Ah, it is so brilliantly clear. I shall be in all those who

have ever, do ever, or ever shall say «I»—especially, however, in all those who say it

most fully, potently, and gladly!...Have I ever hated life—pure, strong, relentless

life? Folly and misconception! I have but hated myself because I could not bear it. I

love you all, you blessed, and soon, soon, I shall cease to be cut off from you by all

the narrow bonds of myself; soon that in me which loves you will be free and be in

and with you—in and with you all.

Philip closed the novel and returned to his notes.

Now who was the author of the volume which so transformed Thomas

Buddenbrooks? Mann does not reveal his name in the novel, but forty years later he

wrote a magnificent essay which stated that Arthur Schopenhauer was the author of

the volume. Mann then proceeds to describe how, at the age of twenty–three, he first

experienced the great joy of reading Schopenhauer. He was not only entranced by the

ring of Schopenhauer`s words, which he describes as «so perfectly consistently clear,

so rounded, its presentation and language so powerful, so elegant, so unerringly

apposite, so passionately brilliant, so magnificently and blithely severe—like never

any other in the history of German philosophy,” but by the essence of

Schopenhauerian thought, which he describes as «emotional, breathtaking, playing

between violent contrasts, between instinct and mind, passion and redemption.» Then

and there Mann resolved that discovering Schopenhauer was too precious an

experience to keep to himself and straightaway used it creatively by offering the

philosopher to his suffering hero.

And not only Thomas Mann but many other great minds acknowledged their

debt to Arthur Schopenhauer. Tolstoy called Schopenhauer the «genius par excellence

among men.» To Richard Wagner he was a «gift from Heaven.» Nietzsche said his

life was never the same after purchasing a tattered volume of Schopenhauer in a used–book store in Leipzig and, as he put it, «letting that dynamic, dismal genius work on

my mind.» Schopenhauer forever changed the intellectual map of the Western world,

and without him we would have had a very different and weaker Freud, Nietzsche,

Hardy, Wittgenstein, Beckett, Ibsen, Conrad.

Philip pulled out a pocketwatch, studied it for a moment, and then, with great

solemnity:

Here concludes my introduction to Schopenhauer. His philosophy has such breadth

and depth it defies a short summary. Hence I have chosen to pique your curiosity in

the hope that you will read the sixty–page chapter in your text carefully. I prefer to

devote the last twenty minutes of this lecture to audience questions and discussion.

Are there questions from the audience, Dr. Hertzfeld?

Unnerved by Philip`s tone, Julius once again scanned the empty auditorium and

then softly said, «Philip, I wonder if you`re aware that your audience has departed?»

«What audience? Them? Those so–called students?» Philip flicked his wrist in a

disparaging manner to convey that they were beneath his notice, that neither their arrival

nor their departure made the slightest difference to him. «You, Dr. Hertzfeld, are my

audience today. I intended my lecture for you alone,” said Philip, who in no way seemed

discomfited by holding a conversation with someone thirty feet away in a cavernous

deserted auditorium.

«All right, I`ll bite. Why am I your audience today?»

«Think about it, Dr. Hertzfeld...”

«I`d prefer you`d call me Julius. If I refer to you as Philip, and I`m assuming that`s

okay with you, then it`s only right that you call me Julius. Ah, dГ©jГ vu all over again—

how clearly I recall saying so very very long ago, ‘Call me Julius, please—we`re not

strangers.`”

«I am not on a first–name basis with my clients because I am their professional

consultant, not their friend. But, as you wish, Julius it is. I`ll start again. You inquire why

you alone are my intended audience. My answer is that I am merely responding to your

request for help. Think about it, Julius, you came to see me with a request for an

interview and embedded in that request were other requests.»

«Oh?»

«Yes. Let me expand upon this matter. First, there was a tone of urgency in your

voice. It was particularly important to you that I meet with you. Obviously, your request

did not arise from simple curiosity about how I was doing. No, you wanted something

else. You mentioned that your health was imperiled, and, in a sixty–five–year–old man,

that means you must be confronting your death. Hence, I could only assume that you

were frightened and searching for some kind of consolation. My lecture today is my

response to your request.»

«An oblique response, Philip.»

«No more oblique than your request, Julius.»

«TouchГ©! But, as I recall, you`ve never minded obliquity.»

«And I`m comfortable with it now. You made a request for help, and I responded

by introducing you to the man who, of all men, can be most helpful to you.»

«And so your intent was to offer me solace by describing how Mann`s dying

Buddenbrooks received comfort from Schopenhauer?»

«Precisely. And I offered that to you only as an appetizer, a sampler of what is to

come. There is a great deal that I, as your guide to Schopenhauer, can offer you, and I

would like to make a proposal.»

«A proposal? Philip, you continue to surprise. My curiosity is piqued.»

«I`ve completed my course work in a counseling program and all other

requirements to obtain a state counseling license, except that I need two hundred more

hours of professional supervision. I can continue practicing as a clinical philosopher—

that field is not regulated by the state—but a counselor`s license would offer me a

number of advantages, including the ability to buy malpractice insurance and to market

myself more effectively. Unlike Schopenhauer, I have neither an independent source of

financial support nor any secure academic support—you`ve seen with your own eyes the

disinterest in philosophy displayed by the clods who attend this pigsty of a university.»

«Philip, why must we shout to one another? The lecture is over. Would you mind

taking a seat and continuing this discussion more informally.»

«Of course.» Philip collected his lecture notes, stuffed them into his briefcase, and

eased into a seat in the front row. Though they were closer, four rows of seats still

separated them, and Philip was forced to swivel his neck awkwardly to see Julius.

«So, am I correct in assuming that you propose a swap—I supervise you and you

teach me about Schopenhauer?» Julius now asked in a low voice.

«Right!» Philip turned his head but not enough to make eye contact.

«And you`ve given thought to the precise mechanics of our arrangement?»

«I`ve given much thought to it. In fact, Dr. Hertzfeld...”

«Julius.»

«Yes, yes—Julius. What I was going to say is that I`d been considering the idea of

calling you for several weeks to try to arrange supervision but kept putting it off,

primarily for financial reasons. So I was startled by the remarkable coincidence of your

call. As for mechanics, I suggest meeting weekly and splitting our hour: half the time you

provide expert advice about my patients, and half the time I am your guide to

Schopenhauer.»

Julius closed his eyes and lapsed into thought.

Philip waited two or three minutes and then: «What say you to my offer? Even

though I`m certain no students will appear, I`m scheduled for office hours after my

lecture and so must head back to the administration building.»

«Well Philip, it`s not your everyday offer. I need more time to think it through.

Let`s meet later this week. I take off Wednesday afternoons. Can you do four o`clock?»

Philip nodded. «I finish at three on Wednesday. Shall we meet in my office?»

«No, Philip. My office. It`s in my home at two–forty–nine Pacific Avenue, not too

far from my old office. Here, take my card.»

Excerpts from Julius`s Journal

After his lecture Philip`s proposal for a supervision–tutoring swap stunned me.

How quickly one moves back into the familiar force field of another person! So much like

the state–dependent memories in dreams in which the landscape`s eerie familiarity

reminds you that you`ve visited the identical locale before in other dreams. Same with

marijuana—a couple of hits and suddenly you`re in a familiar place thinking familiar

thoughts that exist only in the marijuana state.

And it`s the same with Philip. Only a little time in his presence and—presto—my

deep memories of him plus a peculiar Philip–induced state of mind reappear in a flash.

How arrogant, how disdainful he is. How uncaring about others. And yet there is

something, something strong—I wonder what?—that draws me to him. His intelligence?

His loftiness and otherworldliness coupled to such extraordinary naГЇvetГ©? And how

unchanged he is after twenty–two years. No, that`s not true! He`s liberated from the

sexual compulsion, no longer doomed to walk nose–to–ground forever sniffing for pussy.

He lives much more in the higher places he`s always longed for. But his

manipulativeness—that`s still there, and so patent, and he`s so clueless about its

visibility, about how I should leap at his offer, how I should give him two hundred hours

of my time in return for his teaching me Schopenhauer, and brazenly presenting it as

though it was I who suggested it, who want and need it. Can`t deny that I have some

slight interest in Schopenhauer, but spending a couple hundred hours with Philip to learn

about Schopenhauer right now is low on my wish list. And if that excerpt he read about

the dying Buddenbrooks is a prime example of what Schopenhauer has to offer me, then it

leaves me cold. The idea of rejoining the universal oneness without any persistence of me

and my memories and unique consciousness is the coldest of comfort. No, it`s no comfort

at all.

And what draws Philip to me? That`s another question. That crack the other day

about the twenty thousand dollars he wasted on his therapy with me—maybe he is still

looking for some return on his investment.

Supervise Philip? Make him a legitimate, kosher therapist? There`s a dilemma. Do

I want to sponsor him? Do I want to give him my blessing when I don`t believe that a

hater (and heisa hater) can help anyone grow?