Текст книги "The Schopenhauer Cure"

Автор книги: Наталия Май

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

27

_________________________

Weshould set a limit

to our wishes, curb

our desires, and

subdue our anger,

always mindful of

the fact that the

individual can

attain only an

infinitely small

share of the things

that are worth

having…

_________________________

After the session the group gathered for about forty–five minutes at their

usual Union Street coffee shop. Because Philip was not present, the group

did not talk about him. Nor did they continue to discuss the issues raised

in the meeting. Instead they listened with interest to Pam`s lively

description of her trip to India. Both Bonnie and Rebecca were intrigued

by Vijay, her gorgeous, mysterious, cinnamon–scented train companion,

and encouraged her to respond to his frequent e–mails. Gill was upbeat,

thanked everyone for their support, and said that he was going to meet

with Julius, get serious about abstinence, and begin AA. He thanked Pam

for her good work with him.

«Go Pam,” said Tony. «The tough–love lady strikes again.»

Pam returned to her condo in the Berkeley hills just above the

university. She often congratulated herself for having the good sense to

hold on to this property when she married Earl. Perhaps, unconsciously,

she knew she might need it again. She loved the blond wood in every

room, her Tibetan scatter rugs, and the warm sunlight streaming into the

living room in the late afternoon. Sipping a glass of Prosecco, she sat on

her deck and watched the sun sink behind San Francisco.

Thoughts about the group swirled in her mind. She thought about

Tony doffing the costume of the group jerk and, with surgical precision,

showing Philip how clueless he was about his own behavior. That was

priceless. She wished she had it on tape. Tony was an uncut gem—bit by

bit, more of his real sparkle was becoming visible. And his comment about

her dispensing «tough love»? Did he or anyone else sense how much the

«tough» outweighed the «love» in her response to Gill? Unloading on Gill

was a great pleasure, only slightly diminished by its having been helpful to

him. «Chief justice,” he had called her. Well, at least he had the guts to say

that—but then he tried to undo it by unctuously complimenting her.

She recalled her first sight of Gill—how she was momentarily

attracted to his physical presence, those muscles bulging out of his vest

and jacket, and how quickly he had disappointed her by his pusillanimous

contortions to please everyone and his whining, his endless whining, about

Rose—his frigid, strong–willed, ninety–five–pound Rose—who had the

good sense, it now turns out, not to be impregnated by a drunk.

After only a few meetings Gill had assumed his place in the long

line of male losers in her life, beginning with her father, who wasted his

law degree because he couldn`t stand the competitive life of an attorney

and settled for a safe civil service position of teaching secretaries how to

write business letters and then lacked the fortitude to fight the pneumonia

that killed him before he could start drawing his pension. Behind him in

line there was Aaron, her acne–faced high school gutless boyfriend who

passed up Swarthmore to live at home and commute to the University of

Maryland, the school nearest home; and Vladimir, who wanted to marry

her even though he had never gotten tenure and would be a journeyman

English composition lecturer forever; and Earl, her soon–to–be ex, who

was phony all the way from his Grecian formula hair dye to his Cliff note

mastery of the classics and whose stable of women patients, including

herself, offered easy pickings; and John, who was too much of a coward to

leave a dead marriage and join her. And the latest addition, Vijay? Well,

Bonnie and Rebecca could have him! She couldn`t rouse much enthusiasm

for a man who would need an all–day equanimity retreat to recover from

the stress of ordering breakfast.

But these thoughts about all the others were incidental. The person

who compelled her attention was Philip, that pompous Schopenhauer

clone, that dolt sitting there, mouthing absurdities, pretending to be

human.

After dinner Pam strolled to her bookshelves and examined her

Schopenhauer section. For a time she had been a philosophy major and

had planned a dissertation on Schopenhauer`s influence on Becket and

Gide. She had loved Schopenhauer`s prose—the best stylist of any

philosopher, save Nietzsche. And she had admired his intellect, his range,

and his courage to challenge all supernatural beliefs, but the more she

learned about Schopenhauer the person, the more revulsion she had felt.

She opened an old volume of his complete essays from her bookshelf and

began reading aloud some of her highlighted passages in his essay titled

«Our Relation to Others.»

• «The only way to attain superiority in dealing with men is to let it

be seen you are independent of them.»

• «To disregard is to win regard.»

• «By being polite and friendly, you can make people pliable and

obliging: hence politeness is to human nature what warmth is to

wax.»

Nowshe remembered why she had hated Schopenhauer. And

Philip a counselor? And Schopenhauer his model? And Julius

teaching him? It was all beyond belief.

She reread the last aphorism:«Politeness is to human nature

what warmth is to wax.» Hmm, so he thinks he can work me like

wax, undo what he did to my life with a gratuitous compliment on

my comments about Buber, or allowing me to pass through a door

first. Well, fuck him!

Later she tried to find peace by soaking in her Jacuzzi and

playing a tape of Goenka`s chanting, which often soothed her with

its hypnotic lilting melody, its sudden stops and starts and changes

of tempo and timbre. She even tried Vipassana meditation for a

few minutes, but she could not retrieve the equanimity it had once

offered. Stepping out of the tub, she inspected herself in the mirror.

She sucked in her abdomen, elevated her breasts, considered her

profile, patted her pubic hair, crossed her legs in an alluring pose.

Damn good for a woman of thirty–three.

Images of her first view of Philip fifteen years ago swiveled

into her mind. Sitting on his desk, casually handing out the class

syllabus to students entering the room, flashing a big smile her

way. He was a dashing man then, gorgeous, intelligent,

otherworldly, impervious to distractions. What the fuck happened

tothat man? And that sex, that force, doing what he wanted,

ripping off my underwear, smothering me with his body. Don`t kid

yourself, Pam—you loved it. A scholar with a fabulous grasp of

Western intellectual history, and a great teacher, too, perhaps the

best she ever had. That`s why she first thought of a major in

philosophy. But these were things he was never going to know.

After she was done with all these distracting and unsettling

angry thoughts, her mind turned to a softer, sadder realm: Julius`s

dying. There was a man to be loved. Dying, but business as usual.

How does he do it? How does he keep his focus? How does Julius

keep caring? And Philip, that prick, challenging him to reveal

himself. And Julius`s patience with him, and his attempts to teach

Philip. Doesn`t Julius see he is an empty vessel?

She entertained a fantasy of nursing Julius as he grew

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 ‘in–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, ‘We 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

those friendships?»

«They drifted away, gradually evaporated. I saw some of the

women over the years by chance, but none of us ever spoke of it.

There was a lot of awkwardness. And a lot of shame.»

«I`m sorry, Julius,” said Pam, «and sorry about your wife—I

never knew that—and of course about...about

those...relationships.»

«I don`t know what to say to you, Julius,” said Bonnie.

«This feels really awkward.»

«Say more about the awkwardness, Bonnie,” said Julius,

feeling burdened by the chore of being his own therapist in the

group.

«Well, this is brand new. This is the first time you`ve ever

laid yourself out like this in the group.»

«Go on. Feelings?»

«I feel very tense. I think it`s because this is so ambiguous.

If one of us,” she waved her arm around, «brings something

painful to the group, we know what we should do—I mean we get

right to work even though we may not know exactly how to do it.

But with you, I don`t know...”

«Right, what`s not clear iswhy you`re telling us,” said Tony,

leaning forward, eyes squinting under his bushy eyebrows. «Let

me ask something I learned from you. It came up last week in

fact.Why now? Is it because you made a bargain with Philip? Most

folks here say no about that—that the bargain makes no sense. Or

do you want help with feelings remaining from that incident? I

mean, your reasons for sharing aren`t clear. If you want my

personal reactions, I got no problem with what you did. I`ll tell you

straight out, I feel the same way I felt about Stuart and Gill and

Rebecca—I personally don`t see the big deal about what you did. I

could see myself doing that. You`re lonely, sexed up, some broads

ask to comfort you, you let them, and everybody has a good time.

They probably got off on it too. I mean, we`re talking about ladies

as though they only get used or exploited. I get riled, really riled,

by this picture of men begging for some scrap of sex which

women, sitting on their thrones, may or may not decide to toss out

as a favor. As though they don`t get off too.»

Tony turned his head at the sound of Pam slapping her head

as she covered her face with her hands and noted that Rebecca, too,

had her hands to her head. «Okay, okay, maybe I`ll toss those last

cards and just stick with the cards saying,Why now? ”

«Good question, Tony. I appreciate your getting me started.

A few minutes ago I was wishing I had a cotherapist here to help

me, and then you come along and do the job. You`re good at this.

Therapy could have been a good career for you. Let`s see.Why

now? I`ve asked that question so many times, and yet this may be

the first time I`ve had it come my way. First, I think you`re all

right–on when you say it`s not because of my bargain with Philip.

Yet I can`t dismiss that entirely because there is something to his

point about the I–thou relationship. To quote Philip, the idea is ‘not

without merit.`” Julius smiled at Philip but received no smile in

return.

Julius continued, «What I mean is, thereis some problem

with the lack of reciprocity in the authentic therapy relationship—

it`s a knotty question. So addressing that problem is part of my

reason for accepting Philip`s challenge.»

Julius wanted a response. He felt he had been speaking too

long. He turned to Philip. «How doyou feel about what I`ve said so

far?»

Philip jerked his head around, startled at Julius`s question.

After a moment`s deliberation he said, «It seems generally agreed

here that I`m one of those who have chosen to reveal a great deal.

That`s inaccurate. Someone in the group revealed something about

their experience with me, and I revealed what I did only in the

service of historical accuracy.»

«Want to tell me what`s that got to do with anything?» asked

Tony.

«Exactly,” said Stuart. «Talk about accuracy, Philip! First,

for the record, I`m not one who`s thought you`ve revealed

yourself. But, mainly I want to say your answer is nowhere near

the mark. It has zero to do with Julius`s question about your

feelings.»

Philip seemed to take no offense. «Right. Okay, back to

Julius`s question—I think I was confounded by his question

because Ihad no feelings. There was nothing in what he said to

warrant an emotional response.»

«Thatat least is relevant,” said Stuart. «Your earlier response

came out of left field.»

«I am so tired of your pseudodementia game here!» Pam,

slapping her thigh in exasperation, spit out her words to Philip.

«And I`m pissed at your refusing to give me a name! This referring

to me as ‘someone in the group` is insulting and imbecilic.»

«Bypseudodementia you imply I feign ignorance?» said

Philip, avoiding Pam`s glare.

«Glory be,” said Bonnie, raising her arms, «A first. The two

of you are acknowledging one another, actually speaking.»

Pam ignored Bonnie`s remark and continued speaking to

Philip. «Pseudodementia is a compliment compared to its

alternative. You say you can find nothing in Julius`s remark

warranting a response. Howcan anyone have no responses to

Julius?» Pam`s eyes blazed.

«For example?» asked Philip. «You obviously have

something in mind for me to feel.»

«Let`s trygratitude for taking you and your thoughtless and

insensitive question seriously. Let`s tryrespect for keeping his I–thou promise to you. Or how aboutsorrow for what he went

through in the past. Orfascination or evenidentification with his

unruly sexual feelings. Oradmiration for his willingness to work

with you, with all of us, despite his cancer. And that`s just for

starters.» Pam raised her voice: «How could younot have

feelings?» Pam looked away from Philip, breaking off their

contact.

Philip didn`t answer. He sat still as a Buddha, leaning

forward in his chair, gazing at the floor.

In the deep silence following Pam`s outburst Julius

wondered how best to continue. Often it was better to wait—one of

his favorite therapy axioms was«strike when the iron is cold!»

Viewing therapy, as he so often did, as a sequence of

emotion activation followed by integration, Julius reflected upon

the abundance of emotional expression today. Perhaps too much.

Time to move on to understanding and integration. Choosing an

oblique route, he turned to Bonnie, «So, what about the‘glory be!

`”

«Reading my thoughts again, Julius? How do you do it? I

was just thinking about that crack and regretting it. I`m afraid it

came out wrong and sounded mocking. Did it?» She looked at Pam

and then Philip.

«I didn`t think so at the time,” said Pam, «but yeah, looking

back, there`s some mocking there.»

«Sorry,” said Bonnie. «But this boiling caldron here, you

and Philip sniping, all those carom shots—I just felt relieved by the

directness. And you?» she turned to Philip. «You resent my

comment?»

«Sorry.» Philip continued looking down. «It didn`t register. I

was only aware of the glare in her eyes.»

«Her?» said Tony.

«In Pam`s eyes.» He turned to Pam, his voice quavered for

an instant, «in your eyes, Pam,”

«Okay, man,” said Tony, «nowwe`re rolling.»

«Were you scared, Philip?» asked Gill. «It`s not easy to be

on the receiving end ofthat, is it?»

«No, I was entirely preoccupied in my search for some way

of not allowing her glare, her words, her opinion to matter to me. I

mean, Pam,your words,your opinion.»

«Sounds like you and I have something in common, Philip,”

said Gill. «You`re like me—we both have our problems with

Pam.»

Philip looked at Gill and nodded, perhaps a nod of gratitude,

Julius thought. When it seemed clear that Philip was not going to

offer more, Julius looked around the group to bring in other

members. He never passed up an opportunity to widen the

interaction network: with the faith of an evangelist he believed that

the more members involved in the interaction, the more effective

the group. He wanted to engage Pam—her outburst toward Philip

was still ringing in the air. To that end, he addressed Gill and said,

«Gill, you say it`s not easy to be on the receiving end of Pam`s

comments...and last week you referred to Pam as the chief

justice—can you say more?»

«Oh, it`s just my stuff, I know, I`m not sure and I`m not a

good judge of this, but—”

Julius interrupted, «Stop! Let`s freeze the action right here.

At this instant.» He turned to Pam: «Look at what Gill just said. Is

that related to your saying you don`t or can`t listen to him?»

«Exactly,” said Pam. «Quintessential Gill. Look, Gill, here`s

what you just announced:‘Don`t pay any attention to what I`m

about to say. It`s not important—I`m not important—it`s just my

stuff. Don`t want to offend. Don`t listen to me.` Not only do you

disqualify yourself, but it is vapid. Downright tedious. Christ, Gill!

You got something to say? Just stand up and say it!»

«So, Gill,” Julius asked, «if you were goingto say it straight

out without preamble, what would it be?» That good old

conditional voice ploy.

«I`d say to her—to you, Pam—youare the judge I fear here.