Ирвин Ялом - The Schopenhauer Cure

I feel I`m labeled a controlling man. Talk about feeling cornered.»

«I don`t get it, Rebecca,” said Tony. «What`s the big deal here? Why are you

freaking out? Stuart`s just saying what you`ve said yourself. How many times have you

said you know how to flirt, that it comes naturally to you? I remember your saying that

you had an easy time in college and in your law firm because you manipulate men with

your sexuality.»

«You make me sound like a whore.» Rebecca swiveled suddenly to Philip.

«Doesn`t that make you think I`m a whore?»

Philip, not distracted from gazing at his favorite spot somewhere on the ceiling,

answered quickly, «Schopenhauer said that a highly attractive women, like a highly

intelligent man, was absolutely destined to living an isolated life. He pointed out that

others are blind with envy and resent the superior person. For that reason, such people

never have close friends of their same sex.»

«That`s not necessarily true,” said Bonnie. «I`m thinking of Pam, our missing

member, who is beautiful too and yet has a large number of close girlfriends.»

«Yeah, Philip,” said Tony, «you saying that, to be popular, you have to be dumb or

ugly?»

«Precisely,” said Philip, «and the wise person will not spend his life or her life

pursuing popularity. It is a will–o`-the–wisp. Popularity does not define what is true or

what is good; quite the contrary, it`s a leveler, a dumbing down. Far better to search

within for one`s values and goals.»

«And how aboutyour goals and values?» asked Tony.

If Philip noted the surliness in Tony`s question, he gave no evidence of it and

replied ingenuously, «Like Schopenhauer, I want to will as little as possible and to know

as much as possible.»

Tony nodded, obviously baffled about how to respond.

Rebecca broke in: «Philip, what you or Schopenhauer was saying about friends

was right on the mark for me—the truth is that I`ve had few close girlfriends. But what

about two people with similar interests and abilities? Don`t you think that friendship is

possible in that case?»

Before Philip could answer, Julius enjoined, «Our time is growing very short

today. I want to check in about how you all are feeling about our last fifteen minutes.

How are we doing here?»

«We`re not on target. We`re missing,” said Gill. «Something oblique is going on.»

«I`mabsorbed,” said Rebecca.

«Nah, too much in our heads,” said Tony.

«I agree,” said Stuart.

«Well, I`m not in my head,” said Bonnie. «I`m close to bursting, or screaming,

or...” Bonnie suddenly rose, gathered up her purse and jacket, and charged out of the

room. A moment later Gill jumped up and ran out of the room to fetch her back. In

awkward silence the group sat listening to the retreating footsteps. Shortly Gill returned,

and as he sat he reported, «She`s okay, said she`s sorry but she just had to get out to

decompress. She`ll go into it next week.»

«Whatis going on?» said Rebecca, snapping open her purse to get sunglasses and

car keys. «Ihate it when she does that. That`s really pissy.»

«Any hunches about what`s going on?» asked Julius.

«PMT, I think,” said Rebecca.

Tony spotted Philip scrunching his face signifying confusion and jumped in.

«PMT—premenstrual tension.» When Philip nodded, Tony clenched his hands and poked

both thumbs upward, «Hey, hey, I taughtyou something,”

«We`ve gotta stop,” said Julius, «but I`ve got a guess about what`s going on with

Bonnie. Go back to Stuart`s summary. Remember how Bonnie started the meeting—

talking about the chubby little girl at school and her unpopularity and her inability to

compete with other girls, especially attractive ones? Well, I wonder if that wasn`t

recreated in the group today? She opened the meeting, and pretty quickly the group left

her for Rebecca. In other words, the very issue she wanted to talk about may have been

portrayed here in living color with all of us playing a part in the pageant.»

Pam in India

(2)

_________________________

Nothingcan alarm or move him

any more. All the thousand

threads of willing binding us

to the world and dragging us

(full of anxiety, craving,

anger, and fear) back and

forth in constant pain: all

these he has cut asunder. He

smiles and looks back calmly

on the phantasmagoria of this

world which now stands before

him as indifferently as chess–men at the end of a game.

_________________________

It was a few days later at 3A.M. Pam lay awake, peering into the darkness. Thanks to the

intervention of her graduate student, Marjorie, who had arranged VIP privileges, she had

a semiprivate room in a tiny alcove with a private toilet just off the women`s common

dormitory. However, the alcove provided no sound buffer, and Pam listened to the

breathing of 150 other Vipassana students. The whoosh of moving air transported her

back to her attic bedroom in her parents` Baltimore home when she lay awake listening to

the March wind rattling the window.

Pam could put up with any of the other ashram hardships—the 4A.M. wakeup time,

the frugal vegetarian one–meal–a–day diet, the endless hours of meditation, the silence,

the Spartan quarters—but the sleeplessness was wearing her down. The mechanism of

falling asleep completely eluded her. How did she used to do it? No, wrong question, she

told herself—a question that compounded the problem because falling asleep is one of

those things that cannot be willed; it must be done unintentionally. Suddenly, an old

memory of Freddie the pig floated into her mind. Freddie, a master detective in a series of

children`s books she hadn`t thought about in twenty–five years, was asked for help by a

centipede who could no longer walk because his hundred legs were out of sync.

Eventually, Freddie solved the problem by instructing the centipede to walk without

looking at his legs—or even thinking about them. The solution lay in turning off

awareness and permitting the body`s wisdom to take over. It was the same with sleeping.

Pam tried to sleep by applying the techniques she had been taught in the workshop

to clear her mind and allow all thoughts to drift away. Goenka, a chubby, bronze–skinned,

pedantic, exceedingly serious and exceedingly pompous guru, had begun by saying that

he would teach Vipassana but first he had to teach the student how to quiet his mind.

(Pam endured the exclusive use of the male pronoun; the waves of feminism had yet not

lapped upon the shores of India.)

For the first three days Goenka gave instruction in theanapana–sati —mindfulness

of breathing. And the days were long. Aside from a daily lecture and a brief question–and–answer period, the only activity from 4A.M. to 9:30P.M. was sitting meditation. To

achieve full mindfulness of breathing, Goenka exhorted students to study in–breaths and

out–breaths.

«Listen. Listen to the sound of your breaths,” he said. «Be conscious of their

duration and their temperature. Note the difference between the coolness of in–breaths

and the warmth of out–breaths. Become like a sentry watching the gate. Fix your attention

upon your nostrils, upon the precise anatomical spot where air enters and leaves.»

«Soon,” Goenka said, «the breath will grow finer and finer until it seems to vanish

entirely, but, as you focus ever more deeply, you will be able to discern its subtle and

delicate form. If you follow all my instructions faithfully,” he said, pointing to the

heavens, «if you are a dedicated student, the practice ofanapana–sati will quiet your

mind. You will then be liberated from all the hindrances to mindfulness: restlessness,

anger, doubt, sensual desire, and drowsiness. You shall awaken into an alert, tranquil, and

joyous state.»

Mind–quieting was indeed Pam`s grail—the reason for her pilgrimage to Igatpuri.

For the past several weeks her mind had been a battlefield from which she fiercely tried

to repel noisy, obsessive, intrusive memories and fantasies about her husband, Earl, and

her lover, John. Earl had been her gynecologist seven years ago when she had become

pregnant and decided upon an abortion, electing not to inform the father, a casual sexual

playmate with whom she wished no deeper involvement. Earl was an uncommonly

gentle, caring man. He skillfully performed the abortion and then provided unusual

postoperative follow–up by phoning her twice at home to inquire about her condition.

Surely, she thought, all the accounts of the demise of humane, dedicated medical care

were hyperbolic rhetoric. Then, a few days later, came a third call which conveyed an

invitation to lunch, during which Earl skillfully negotiated the segue from doctor to

suitor. It was during their fourth call that she agreed, not without enthusiasm, to

accompany him to a New Orleans medical convention.

Their courtship proceeded with astonishing quickness. No man ever knew her so

well, comforted her so much, was so exquisitely familiar with her every nook and cranny,

nor afforded her more sexual pleasure. Though he had many wonderful qualities—he was

competent, handsome, and carried himself well—she conferred upon him (she now

realized) heroic, larger–than–life stature. Dazzled at being the chosen one, at being

promoted to the head of the line of women packing his office clamoring for his healing

touch, she fell wholly in love and agreed to marriage a few weeks later.

At first married life was idyllic. But midway into the second year, the reality of

being married to a man twenty–five years older set in: he needed more rest; his body

showed his sixty–five years; white hair appeared in defiance of Grecian formula hair dye.

Earl`s rotator cuff injury ended their tennis Sundays together, and when a torn knee

cartilage put an end to his skiing, Earl put his Tahoe house on the market without

consulting her. Sheila, her close friend and college roommate, who had advised her not to

marry an older man, now urged her to maintain her own identity and not be in a rush to

grow old. Pam felt fast–forwarded. Earl`s aging fed on her youth. Each night he came

home with barely enough energy to sip his three martinis and watch TV.

And the worst of it was that he never read. How fluently, how confidently he had

once conversed about literature. How much his love ofMiddlemarch andDaniel Deronda

had endeared him to her. And what a shock to realize only a short time later that she had

mistaken form for substance: not only were Earl`s literary observations memorized, but

his repertory of books was limited and static. That was the toughest hit: howcould she

have ever loved a man who did not read? She, whose dearest and closest friends dwelled

in the pages of George Eliot, Woolf, Murdoch, Gaskell, and Byatt?

And that was where John, a red–haired associate professor in her department at

Berkeley with an armful of books, a long graceful neck, and a stand–up Adam`s apple,

came in. Though English professors were expected to be well–read, she had known too

many who rarely ventured out of their century of expertise and were complete strangers