Текст книги "The Schopenhauer Cure"
Автор книги: Наталия Май
Жанр:
Психология
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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, вЂCall 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?
