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think about—Tony, you opened up some things for me. Thanks.»
«So,” said Tony with a grin, «am I excused from paying
today?»
«Blessed is he who gives,” said Julius. «But who knows?—
keep on like this and that day may come.»
After leaving the group room the members chattered on the outside
steps of Julius`s home before dispersing. Only Tony and Pam
headed toward the coffee shop.
Pam was fixated on Philip. She was not mollified by Philip`s
statement that she had been unlucky to have met him. Moreover,
she hated his compliment on her interpretation of the parable and
hated even more that she had enjoyed getting it. She worried that
the group was swinging over to Philip—away from her, away from
Julius.
Tony felt elated—he voted himself the MVP—the meeting`s
most valuable player; maybe he`d skip the bar scene tonight—try
to read one of the books Pam had given him.
Gill watched Pam and Tony walk down the street together.
He (and Philip of course) were the only ones Pam had not hugged
at the end of the meeting. Had he crossed her too much? Gill
turned his attention to tomorrow`s wine–tasting event—one of
Rose`s big nights. A group of Rose`s friends always got together at
this time of the year for a sampling of the year`s best wines. How
to negotiate that? Just swish the wine and spit it out? Pretty tough
to pull that off. Or come right out with the truth? He thought of his
AA sponsor: he knew how the conversation between them would
go:
Sponsor:Where`re your priorities? Skip the event, go to a
meeting.
Gill:But wine tasting is the reason these friends get together.
Sponsor:Is it? Suggest another activity.
Gill:Won`t work. They won`t do it.
Sponsor:Then get new friends.
Gill:Rose won`t like it.
Sponsor:So?
Rebecca said to herself:Real stuff in, real stuff out. Real stuff
in, real stuff out. Must remember that. She smiled when she
thought about Tony counting his money when she had talked about
her flirtation with whoredom. Secretly she had gotten a kick out of
that. Was it bad faith to accept an apology from him?
Bonnie, as always, hated to see the meeting come to an end.
She was alive those ninety minutes. The rest of her life seemed so
tepid. Why was that? Whymust librarians lead dull lives? Then she
thought about Philip`s statement about what you are, what you
have, and what you represent to others. Intriguing!
Stuart relished the meeting. He was entering full–bodied into
the group. He repeated to himself the words he had said to Rebecca
about how her looks served as a barrier to knowing her and that he
had recently seen something deeper than her skin. That was good.
That was good. And telling Philip that his cold kind of consolation
had made him shiver.That was being more than a camera. And
then there was the way he had pointed out the tension between
Pam and Philip. No, no, that was camera stuff.
On his walk home Philip struggled to avoid thinking of the
meeting, but the events were too heady to screen out. In a few
minutes he caved in and permitted his thoughts free rein. Old
Epictetus had caught their attention. He always does. Then he
imagined hands reaching out and faces turned toward him. Gill had
become his champion—but not to be taken seriously. Gill
wasn`tfor him but instead wasagainst Pam, trying to learn how to
defend himself against her, and Rose, and all other women.
Rebecca had liked what he had said. Her handsome face lingered
briefly in his mind. And then he thought of Tony—the tattoos, the
bruised cheek. He had never met anyone like him—a real
primitive, but a primitive who is beginning to comprehend a world
beyond everydayness. And Julius—was he losing his sharpness?
How could he defend attachment while acknowledging his
problems of overinvestment in Philip as a patient?
Philip felt jittery, uncomfortable in his skin. He sensed that
he was in danger of unraveling. Why had he told Pam that she was
unlucky to have met him? Is that why she had spoken his name so
often in the meeting—and demanded that he face her? His former
debased self was hovering like a ghost. He sensed its presence,
thirsting for life. Philip quieted his mind and slipped into a walking
meditation.
33
Suffering, Rage, Perseverance
_________________________
To the learned
men and
philosophers of
Europe: for
you, a windbag
like Fichte is
the equal of
Kant, the
greatest
thinker of all
time, and a
worthless
barefaced
charlatan like
Hegel is
considered to
be a profound
thinker. I have
therefore not
written for
you.
_________________________
If Arthur Schopenhauer were alive today, would he be a candidate
for psychotherapy? Absolutely! He was highly symptomatic. In
«About Me» he laments that nature endowed him with an anxious
disposition and a «suspiciousness, sensitiveness, vehemence, and
pride in a measure that is hardly compatible with the equanimity of
a philosopher.»
In graphic language he describes his symptoms.
Inherited from my father is the anxiety which I myself curse
and combat with all the force of my will.... As a young man I
was tormented by imaginary illnesses.... When I was studying
in Berlin I thought I was a consumptive.... I was haunted by
the fear of being pressed into military service.... From Naples I
was driven by the fear of smallpox and from Berlin by the fear
of cholera.... In Verona I was seized by the idea I had taken
poisoned snuff...in Manheim I was overcome by an
indescribable feeling of fear without any external cause.... For
years I was haunted by the fear of criminal proceedings.... If
there was a noise at night I jumped out of bed and seized sword
and pistols that I always had ready loaded.... I always have an
anxious concern that causes me to look for dangers where none
exist: it magnifies the tiniest vexation and makes association
with people most difficult for me.
Hoping to quell his suspiciousness and chronic fear, he
employed a host of precautions and rituals: he hid gold coins and
valuable interest–bearing coupons in old letters and other secret
places for emergency use, he filed personal notes under false
headings to confuse snoopers, he was fastidiously tidy, he
requested that he always be served by the same bank clerk, he
allowed no one to touch his statue of the Buddha.
His sexual drive was too strong for comfort, and, even as a
young man, he deplored being controlled by his animal passions.
At the age of thirty–six a mysterious course of illness confined him
to his room for an entire year. A physician and medical historian
suggested in 1906 that his illness had been syphilis, basing the
diagnosis only upon the nature of the medication prescribed,
coupled with Schopenhauer`s history of unusually great sexual
activity.
Arthur longed to be released from the grip of sexuality. He
savored his moments of serenity when he was able to observe the
world with calm in spite of the lust tormenting his corporeal self.
He compared sexual passion to the daylight which obscures the
stars. As he aged he welcomed the decline of sexual passion and
the accompanying tranquillity.
Since his deepest passion was his work, his strongest and
most persistent fear was that he should lose the financial means
enabling him to live the life of the intellect. Even into old age he
blessed the memory of his father, who had made such a life
possible, and he spent much time and energy guarding his money
and pondering his investments. Accordingly, he was alarmed by
any unrest threatening his investments and became
ultraconservative in his politics. The 1848 rebellion, which swept
over Germany as well as the rest of Europe, terrified him. When
soldiers entered his building to gain a vantage point from which to
fire on the rebellious populace in the street, he offered them his
opera glasses to increase the accuracy of their rifle fire. In his will,
twelve years later, he left almost his entire estate to a fund
established for the welfare of Prussian soldiers disabled fighting
that rebellion.
His anxiety–driven letters about business matters were often
laced with anger and threats. When the banker who handled the
Schopenhauer family money suffered a disastrous financial setback
and, to escape bankruptcy, offered all his investors only a small
fraction of their investment, Schopenhauer threatened him with
such draconian legal consequences that the banker returned to him
70 percent of his money while paying other investors (including
Schopenhauer`s mother and sister) an even smaller portion than
originally proposed. His abusive letters to his publisher eventually
resulted in a permanent rupture of their relationship. The publisher
wrote: «I shall not accept any letters from you which in their divine
rudeness and rusticity suggest a coachman rather than a
philosopher.... I only hope that my fears that by printing your
work I am printing only waste paper will not come true.»
Schopenhauer`s rage was legendary: rage at financiers who
handled his investments, at publishers who could not sell his
books, at the dolts who attempted to engage him in conversations,
at the bipeds who regarded themselves his equal, at those who
coughed at concerts, and at the press for ignoring him. But the real
rage, the white–hot rage whose vehemence still astounds us and
made Schopenhauer a pariah in his intellectual community was his
rage toward contemporary thinkers, particularly the two leading
lights of nineteenth–century philosophy: Fichte and Hegel.
In a book published twenty years after Hegel succumbed to
cholera during the Berlin epidemic, he referred to Hegel as «a
commonplace, inane, loathsome, repulsive, and ignorant charlatan,
who with unparalleled effrontery, compiled a system of crazy
nonsense that was trumpeted abroad as immortal wisdom by his
mercenary followers.»
Such intemperate outbursts about other philosophers cost
him heavily. In 1837 he was awarded first prize for an essay on the
freedom of the will in a competition sponsored by the Royal
Norwegian Society for Learning. Schopenhauer showed a childlike
delight in the prize (it was his very first honor) and greatly vexed
the Norwegian consul in Frankfurt by impatiently clamoring for
his medal. However, the very next year, his essay on the basis of
morality submitted to a competition sponsored by the Royal
Danish Society for Learning met a different fate. Though the
argument of his essay was excellent and though it was the only
essay submitted, the judges refused to award him the prize because
of his intemperate remarks about Hegel. The judges commented,
«We cannot pass over in silence the fact that several outstanding
philosophers of the modern age are referred to in so improper a
manner as to cause serious and just offense.»
Over the years many have agreed entirely with
Schopenhauer`s opinion that Hegel`s prose is unnecessarily
obfuscating. In fact, he is so difficult to read that an old joke
circulating around philosophy departments is that the most vexing
and awesome philosophical question is not «does life have
meaning?» or «what is consciousness?» but «who will teach Hegel
this year?» Still, the level, the vehemence of Schopenhauer`s rage
set him apart from all other critics.
The more his work was neglected, the shriller he became,
which, in turn, caused further neglect and, for many, made him an
object of mockery. Yet, despite his anxiety and loneliness,
Schopenhauer survived and continued to exhibit all the outward
signs of personal self–sufficiency. And he persevered in his work,
remaining a productive scholar until the end of his life. He never
lost faith in himself. He compared himself to a young oak tree who
looked as ordinary and unimportant as other plants. «But let him
alone: he will not die. Time will come and bring those who know
how to value him.» He predicted his genius would ultimately have
a great influence upon future generations of thinkers. And he was
right; all that he predicted has come to pass.
34
_________________________
Seen from the
standpoint of
youth, life is
an endlessly
long future;
from that of
old age it
resembles a
very brief
past. When we
sail away,
objects on the
shore become
ever smaller
and more
difficult to
recognize and
distinguish;
so, too, is it
with our past
years with all
their events
and activities.
_________________________
As time raced by, Julius looked forward with increasing
anticipation to the weekly group meeting. Perhaps his experiences
in the group were more poignant because the weeks of his «one
good year» were running out. But it was not just the events of the
group; everything in his life, large and small, appeared more tender
and vivid. Of course, his weeks hadalways been numbered, but the
numbers had seemed so large, so stretched into a forever future,
that he had never confronted the end of weeks.
Visible endings always cause us to brake. Readers zip
through the thousand pages ofThe Brothers Karamazov until there
are only a dozen remaining pages, and then they suddenly
decelerate, savoring each paragraph slowly, sucking the nectar
from each phrase, each word. Scarcity of days caused Julius to
treasure time; more and more he fell into astonished contemplation
of the miraculous flow of everyday events.
Recently, he had read a piece by an entomologist who
explored the cosmos existing in a roped–off, two–by–two piece of
turf. Digging deeply, he described his sense of awe at the dynamic,
teeming world of predators and prey, nematodes, millipedes,
springtails, armor–plated beetles, and spiderlings. If perspective is
attuned, attention rapt, and knowledge vast, then one enters
everydayness in a perpetual state of wonderment.
So it was for Julius in the group. His fears about the
recurrence of his melanoma had receded, and his panics grew less
frequent. Perhaps his greater comfort stemmed from taking his
doctor`s estimate of «one good year» too literally, almost as a
guarantee. More likely, though, his mode of life was the active
emollient. Following Zarathustra`s path, he had shared his
ripeness, transcended himself by reaching out to others, and lived
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