after the group ends--is that real or just a phony way of
softening the let-down? It just muddies the waters. Keeps
Tony hanging."
"Yep, right on!" said Tony. "That statement a couple
weeks ago about our possibly continuing sometime in the
future was big for me. I'm trying to keep everything on an
even keel so I can keep that possibility open."
"And," said Julius, "in so doing, you forfeit the
opportunity of doing some work on yourself while this
group and I are still available to you."
"You know, Tony," said Rebecca, "getting laid is not
the most important thing, not the only thing, in the world."
"I know, I know, that's why I'm bringing this up
today. Give me a break."
After a short silence Julius said, "So, Tony, keep
working on this."
Tony faced Pam. "Let's do what Gill said--clear the
air--as adults. What do you want?"
"What I want is to go back to where we were before.
I want you to forgive me for embarrassing you by springing
the confession. You're a dear man, Tony, and I care for
you. The other day I overheard my undergraduate students
using this new term, fuck-buddies --perhaps that's what we were and it was fun then but it's a bad idea now or in the
future--the group takes precedence. Let's concentrate on
working on our stuff."
"Okay by me. I'm up for it."
"So, Tony," said Julius, "you're liberated--you're
now free to talk about all the thoughts you've been holding
back lately--about yourself, Pam, or the group."
In the remaining meetings the liberated Tony returned to
his instrumental role in the group. He urged Pam to deal
with her feelings about Philip. When the potential
breakthrough following her praise of Philip as a teacher
never materialized, he pressed her to work harder on why
she kept her resentment of Philip red-hot yet could find
forgiveness for others in the group.
"I've already said," Pam answered, "that obviously
it's much easier to forgive others, like Rebecca, or Stuart,
or Gill, because I was not a personal victim of their offense.
My life wasn't altered by what they did. But there's more. I
can forgive others here because they've shown remorse
and, above all, because they've changed.
"I've changed. I do believe, now, it's possible to
forgive the person but not the act. I think I might be
capable of forgiving a changed Philip. But he hasn't
changed. You ask why I can forgive Julius--well, look at him: he never stops giving. And, as I'm sure you've all
figured out, he's been giving us a final gift of love: he's
teaching us how to die. I knew the old Philip, and I can
attest he's the same man you see sitting here. If anything,
he's colder and more arrogant."
After a short pause she added, "And an apology from
him wouldn't hurt."
"Philip, not changed?" said Tony. "I think you're
seeing what you want to see. All those women he used to
chase-- that's changed." Tony turned to Philip. "You
haven't really spelled it out, but it's different. Right?"
Philip nodded. "My life has been very different--I
have been with no woman in twelve years."
"You don't call that change?" Tony asked Pam.
"Or reform?" said Gill.
Before Pam could respond, Philip interjected,
"Reform? No, that's inaccurate. The idea of reformation
played no role. Let me clarify: I have not changed my life,
or, as it's been put here, my sex addiction, by virtue of
some moral resolution. I changed because my life was
agony--no longer bearable."
"How did you take that final step? Was there a last—
straw event?" asked Julius.
Philip hesitated as he considered whether to answer
Julius. Then he inhaled deeply and began, speaking
mechanically as though wound up with a key: "One night I
was driving home after a long orgy with an exceptionally
beautiful woman and thought that now, if ever in my life, I
had gotten all I wanted. I had had my surfeit. The aroma of
sexual juices in the car was overpowering. Everything
reeked of fetid flesh: the air, my hands, my hair, my
clothes, my breath. It was as though I had just bathed in a
tub of female musk. And then, on the horizon of my mind I
could spot it--desire was gathering strength, readying to
rear its head again. That was the moment. Suddenly my life made me sick, and I began to vomit. And it was then,"
Philip turned to Julius, "when your comment about my
epitaph came to mind. And that was when I realized that Schopenhauer was right: life is forever a torment, and
desire is unquenchable. The wheel of torment would spin
forever; I had to find a way to get off the wheel, and it was
then I deliberately set about patterning my life after his."
"And it's worked for you all these years?" said
Julius.
"Until now, until this group."
"But you're so much better now, Philip," said
Bonnie. "You're so much more in touch, so much more
approachable. I'll tell you the truth--the way you were
when you first started here...I mean I could never have
imagined me or anyone else consulting you as a counselor."
"Unfortunately," Philip responded, "being 'in touch'
here means that I must share everyone's unhappiness. That
simply compounds my misery. Tell me, how can this
'being in touch' possibly be useful? When I was 'in life' I
was miserable. For the past twelve years I have been a
visitor to life, an observer of the passing show, and"--
Philip spread his fingers and raised and lowered his hands
for emphasis--"I have lived in tranquillity. And now that
this group has compelled me to once again be 'in life,' I am
once again in anguish. I mentioned to you my agitation
after that group meeting a few weeks ago. I have not
regained my former equanimity."
"I think there's a flaw in your reasoning, Philip,"
said Stuart, "and that has to do with your statement that you
were 'in life.'"
Bonnie leaped in, "I was going to say the same thing.
I don't believe you were ever in life, not really in life.
You've never talked about having a real loving
relationship. I've heard nothing about male friends, and, as
for women, you say yourself that you were a predator."
"That true, Philip?" asked Gill. "Have there never
been any real relationships?"
Philip shook his head. "Everyone with whom I've
interacted has caused me pain."
"Your parents?" asked Stuart.
"My father was distant and, I think, chronically
depressed. He took his own life when I was thirteen. My
mother died a few years ago, but I had been estranged from
her for twenty years. I did not attend her funeral."
"Brothers? Sisters?" asked Tony.
Philip shook his head. "An only child."
"You know what comes to my mind?" Tony
interjected. "When I was a kid, I wouldn't eat most things
my mother cooked. I'd always say 'I don't like it,' and
she'd always come back with 'How do you know you don't
like it if you've never tasted it?' Your take on life reminds
me of that."
"Many things," Philip replied, "can be known by
virtue of pure reason. All of geometry, for example. Or one
may have some partial exposure to a painful experience and
extrapolate the whole from that. And one may look about,
read, observe others."
"But your main dude, Schopenhauer," said Tony,
"didn't you say he made a big deal about listening to your
own body, of relying on--what did you say?--your instant
experience?"
"Immediate experience."
"Right, immediate experience. So wouldn't you say
you're making a major decision on second-rate,
secondhand info--I mean info that's not your own
immediate experience?"
"Your point is well taken, Tony, but I had my fill of
direct experience after that 'confession day' session."
"Again you go back to that session, Philip. It seems
to have been a turning point," said Julius. "Maybe it's time
to describe what happened to you that day."
As before, Philip paused, inhaled deeply, and then
proceeded to relate, in a methodical manner, his experience
after the end of that meeting. As he spoke of his agitation
and his inability to marshal his mind-quieting techniques,
he grew visibly agitated. Then, as he described how his
mental flotsam did not drift away but lodged in his mind,
drops of perspiration glistened on his forehead. And then,
as Philip spoke of the reemergence of his brutish, rapacious
self, a pool of wetness appeared in the armpits of his pale
red shirt and rivulets of sweat dripped from his chin and
nose and down his neck. The room was very still; everyone
was transfixed by Philip's leakage of words and of water.
He paused, took another deep breath, and continued:
"My thoughts lost their coherence; images flooded pell—
mell into my mind: memories I had long forgotten. I
remembered some things about my two sexual encounters
with Pam. And I saw her face, not her face now but her
face of fifteen years ago, with a preternatural vividness. It
was radiant; I wanted to hold it and..." Philip was prepared
to hold nothing back, not his raw jealousy, not the caveman
mentality of possessing Pam, not even the image of Tony
with the Popeye forearms, but he was now overcome by a
massive diaphoresis, which soaked him to the skin. He
stood and strode out of the room saying, "I'm drenched; I
have to leave."
Tony bolted out after him. Three or four minutes
later the two of them reentered the room, Philip now
wearing Tony's San Francisco Giants sweater, and Tony
stripped to his tight black T-shirt.
Philip looked at no one but simply collapsed into his
seat, obviously exhausted.
"Bring 'em back alive," said Tony.
"If I weren't married," said Rebecca, "I could fall in
love with both you guys for what you just did."
"I'm available," said Tony.
"No comment," said Philip. "That's it for me
today--I'm drained."
"Drained? Your first joke here, Philip. I love it," said
Rebecca.
39
F
a
m
e
,
a
t
L
a
s
t
_________________________
Somecannot
loosen
their own
chains yet
can
nonetheles
s liberate
their
friends.
--
Nietzsch
e
_________________________
There are few things that Schopenhauer vilified more than
the craving for fame. And, yet, oh how he craved it!
Fame plays an important role in his last
book, Parerga and Paralipomena, a two-volume
compilation of incidental observations, essays, and
aphorisms, completed in 1851, nine years before his death.
With a profound sense of accomplishment and relief, he
finished the book and said; "I will wipe my pen and say,
'the rest is silence.'"
But finding a publisher was a challenge: none of his
previous publishers would touch it, having lost too much
money on his other unread works. Even his magnum
opus, The World as Will and Representation, had sold only a few copies and received only a single, lack-luster review.
Finally, one of his loyal "evangelists" persuaded a Berlin
bookseller to publish a printing of 750 copies in 1853.
Schopenhauer was to receive ten free copies but no
royalties.
The first volume of Parerga and Paralipomena
contains a striking triplet of essays on how to gain and
maintain a sense of self-worth. The first essay, "What a
Man Is," describes how creative thinking results in a sense
of inner wealth. Such a path provides self-esteem and
enables one to overcome the basic vacuity and boredom of
life, which results in a ceaseless pursuit of sexual
conquests, travel, and games of chance.
The second essay, "What a Man Has," dissects one
of the major techniques used to compensate for inner
poverty: the endless accumulation of possessions, which
ultimately results in one becoming possessed by one's
possessions.
It is the third essay, "What a Man Represents," that
most clearly expresses his views on fame. A person's self-worth or inner merit is the essential commodity, whereas
fame is something secondary, the mere shadow of merit. "It
is not fame but that whereby we merit it that is of true
value.... a man's greatest happiness is not that posterity
will know something about him but he himself will develop
thoughts that deserve consideration and preservation for
centuries." Self-esteem that is based on inner merit results
in personal autonomy which cannot be wrested from us--it
is in our power--whereas fame is never in our power.
He knew that ablating the desire for fame was not
easy; he likened it to "extracting an obstinate painful thorn
from our flesh" and agreed with Tacitus, who wrote, "The
thirst for fame is the last thing of all to be laid aside by wise men." And he, himself, was never able to lay aside the
thirst for fame. His writings are permeated with bitterness
about his lack of success. He regularly searched
newspapers and journals for some mention, any mention, of
himself or his work. Whenever he was away on a trip, he
assigned this scanning task to Julius Frauenstadt, his most
loyal evangelist. Though he could not stop chaffing at
being ignored, he ultimately resigned himself to never
knowing fame in his lifetime. In later introductions to his
books he explicitly addressed the future generations who
would discover him.
And then the unthinkable came. Parerga and
Paralipomena, the very book in which he described the
folly of pursuing fame, made him f
amous. In this final
work he softened his pessimism, staunched his flow of
jeremiads, and offered wise instruction on how to live.
Though he never renounced his belief that life is but a
"mouldy film on the surface of the earth," and "a useless
disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness," he
took a more pragmatic path in the Parerga and
Paralipomena. We have no choice, he said, but to be
condemned to life and must therefore attempt to live with
as little pain as possible. (Schopenhauer always viewed
happiness as a negative state--an absence of suffering--
and treasured Aristotle's maxim "Not to pleasure but to
painlessness do the prudent aspire.")
Accordingly, Parerga and Paralipomena offers
lessons on how to think independently, how to retain
skepticism and rationality, how to avoid soothing
supernatural emollients, how to think well of ourselves,
keep our stakes low, and avoid attaching ourselves to what
can be lost. Even though "everyone must act in life's great
puppet play and feel the wire which sets us into motion,"
there is, nonetheless, comfort in maintaining the
philosopher's lofty perspective that, from the aspect of
eternity, nothing really matters--everything passes.
Parerga and Paralipomena introduces a new tone.
While it continues to emphasize the tragic and lamentable
suffering of existence, it adds the dimension of
connectivity--that is, through the commonality of our
suffering, we are inexorably connected to one another. In
one remarkable passage the great misanthrope displays a
softer, more indulgent, view of his fellow bipeds.
The really proper address between one man and another
should be, instead of Sir, Monsieur,... my fellow
sufferer. However strange this may sound, it accords
with the facts, puts the other man in the most correct
light, and reminds us of that most necessary thing,
tolerance, patience, forbearance, and love of one's
neighbor, which everyone needs and each of us
therefore owes to another.
A few sentences later he adds a thought that could
serve well as an opening paragraph in a contemporary
textbook of psychotherapy.
We should treat with indulgence every human folly,
failing, and vice, bearing in mind that what we have
before us are simply our own failings, follies, and vices.