Ирвин Ялом - The Schopenhauer Cure

considered the paraphernalia of the most powerful and longest–running con game in

history, a game which empowered the leaders and satisfied the congregation`s lust for

submission.

But now, with death standing next to him, Julius noted that his vehemence had lost

its bite. Maybe it was simplyimposed ritual he disliked. Perhaps a good word could be

found for a little personal creative ceremony. He was touched by the newspaper

descriptions of the firemen at ground zero in New York, stopping, standing, and

removing hats to honor the dead as each pallet of newly discovered remains was brought

to the surface. Nothing wrong with honoring the dead...no, not the dead, but honoring the

life of the one who died. Or was it something more than honoring, more than sanctifying?

Wasn`t the gesture, the ritual of the firemen, also signifying connectivity? The

recognition of their relationship, their unity with each victim?

Julius had a personal taste of connectivity a few days after his fateful meeting with

his dermatologist when he attended his support group of fellow psychotherapists. His

fellow doctors were stunned when Julius revealed the news of his melanoma. After

encouraging him to talk himself out, each group member expressed his shock and sorrow.

Julius couldn`t find any more words, nor could anyone else. A couple of times someone

started to talk but did not, and then it was as if the group agreed nonverbally that words

were not necessary. For the final twenty minutes all sat in silence. Such prolonged

silences in groups are almost invariably awkward, but this one felt different, almost

comforting. Julius was embarrassed to admit, even to himself, that the silence felt

«sacred.» Later it occurred to him that the members not only were expressing grief but

were also removing their hats, standing at attention, joining and honoring his life.

And perhaps this was a way of honoring their own lives, Julius thought. What else

do we have? What else other than this miraculous blessed interval of being and self–awareness? If anything is to be honored and blessed, it should simply be this—the

priceless gift of sheer existence. To live in despair because life is finite or because life

has no higher purpose or embedded design is crass ingratitude. To dream up an

omniscient creator and devote our life to endless genuflection seems pointless. And

wasteful, too: why squander all that love on a phantasm when there seems too little love

to go around on Earth as it is? Better to embrace Spinoza`s and Einstein`s solution:

simply bow one`s head, tip one`s hat to the elegant laws and mystery of nature, and go

about the business of living.

These were not new thoughts for Julius—he had always known of finiteness and

the evanescence of consciousness. But there is knowing andknowing. And death`s

presence on the stage brought him closer to really knowing. It was not that he had grown

wiser: it was only that the removal of distractions—ambition, sexual passion, money,

prestige, applause, popularity—offered a purer vision. Wasn`t such detachment the

Buddha`s truth? Perhaps so, but he preferred the path of the Greeks: everything in

moderation. Too much of life`s show is missed if we never take off our coats and join in

the fun. Why rush to the exit door before closing time?

After a few days, when Julius felt calmer with fewer sweeps of panic, his thoughts turned

to the future. «One good year» Bob King had said, «no guarantees, but it would not be

unreasonable to hope for at least a year of good health.» But how to spend that year? One

thing he resolved was not to make that one good year a bad year by grieving that it was

not more than a year.

One night, unable to sleep and craving some comfort, he restlessly browsed in his

library. He could find nothing written in his own field that seemed even remotely relevant

to his life situation, nothing pertaining to how should one live, or find meaning in one`s

remaining days. But then his eye fell upon a dog–eared copy of Nietzsche`sThus Spake

Zarathustra. Julius knew this book well: decades ago he had thoroughly studied it while

writing an article on the significant but unacknowledged influence of Nietzsche on

Freud.Zarathustra was a brave book which more than any other, Julius thought, teaches

how to revere and celebrate life. Yes, this might be the ticket. Too anxious to read

systematically, he flipped the pages randomly and sampled some of the lines he had

highlighted.

«To change ‘it was` into ‘thus I willed it`—that alone shall I call redemption.»

Julius understood Nietzsche`s words to mean that he had to choose his life—he had

to live it rather than be lived by it. In other words he should love his destiny. And above

all there was Zarathustra`s oft–repeated question whether we would be willing to repeat

the precise life we have lived again and again throughout eternity. A curious thought

experiment—yet, the more he thought about it, the more guidance it provided:

Nietzsche`s message to us was to live life in such a way that we would be willing to

repeat the same life eternally.

He continued flipping the pages and stopped at two passages highlighted heavily in

neon pink: «Consummate your life.» «Die at the right time.»

These hit home. Live your life to the fullest; and then, and only then, die. Don`t

leave any unlived life behind. Julius often likened Nietzsche`s words to a Rorschach

exam; they offered so many opposing viewpoints that the readers` state of mind

determined what they took from them. Now he read with a vastly different state of mind.

The presence of death prompted a different and more enlightened reading: in page after

page, he saw evidence of a pantheistic connectedness not previously appreciated.

However much Zarathustra extolled, even glorified solitude, however much he required

isolation in order to give birth to great thoughts, he was nonetheless committed to loving

and lifting others, to helping others perfect and transcend themselves, to sharing his

ripeness.Sharing his ripeness —that hit home.

ReturningZarathustra to its resting place, Julius sat in the dark staring at the lights

of cars crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and thinking about Nietzsche`s words. After a

few minutes Julius «came to»: he knew exactly what to do and how to spend his final

year.He would live just the way he had lived the previous year—and the year before that

and before that. He loved being a therapist; he loved connecting to others and helping to

bring something to life in them. Maybe his work was sublimation for his lost connection

to his wife; maybe he needed the applause, the affirmation and gratitude of those he

helped. Even so, even if dark motives played their role, he was grateful for his work. God

bless it!

Strolling over to his wall of file cabinets, Julius opened a drawer filled with charts and

audiotaped sessions of patients seen long ago. He stared at the names—each chart a

monument to a poignant human drama that had once played itself out in this very room.

As he surfed through the charts, most of the faces immediately sprang to mind. Others

had faded, but a few paragraphs of notes evoked their faces, too. A few were the truly

forgotten, their faces and stories lost forever.

Like most therapists, Julius found it difficult to seal himself off from the

unremitting attacks on the field of therapy. Assault came from many directions: from

pharmaceutical companies and managed care, which sponsored superficial research

orchestrated to validate the effectiveness of drugs and briefer therapies; from the media,

which never tired of ridiculing therapists; from behaviorists; from motivational speakers;

from the hordes of new age healers and cults all competing for the hearts and minds of

the troubled. And, of course, there were doubts from within: the extraordinary molecular

neurobiological discoveries reported with ever–increasing frequency caused even the

most experienced therapists to wonder about the relevance of their work.

Julius was not immune to these attacks and often entertained doubts about the

effectiveness of his therapy and just as often soothed and reassured himself.Of course he

was an effective healer.Of course he offered something valuable to most, perhaps even

all, of his patients.

Yet the imp of doubt continued to made its presence known:Were you really, truly,

helpful to your patients? Maybe you`ve just learned to pick patients who were going to

improve on their own anyway.

No. Wrong! Wasn`t I the one who always took on great challenges?

Huh, you`ve got your limits! When was the last time you really stretched yourself—

took a flagrant borderline into therapy? Or a seriously impaired schizophrenic or a

bipolar patient?

Continuing to thumb through old charts, Julius was surprised to see how much

posttherapy information he had—from occasional follow–up or «tune–up» visits, from

chance encounters with the patient, or from messages delivered by new patients they had

referred to him. But, still, had he made an enduring difference to them? Maybe his results

were evanescent. Maybe many of his successful patients had relapsed and shielded that

information from him out of sheer charity.

He noted his failures, too—folks, he had always told himself, who were not ready

for his advanced brand of deliverance. Wait, he told himself, give yourself a break,

Julius. How do you know they werereally failures?permanent failures? You never saw

them again. We all know there are plenty of late bloomers out there.

His eye fell upon Philip Slate`s thick chart. You want failure? he said to

himself.There was failure. Old–time major–league failure. Philip Slate. More than twenty

years had passed, but his image of Philip Slate was crisp. His light brown hair combed

straight back, his thin graceful nose, those high cheekbones that suggested nobility, and

those crisp green eyes that reminded him of Caribbean waters. He remembered how

much he disliked everything about his sessions with Philip. Except for one thing: the

pleasure of looking at that face.

Philip Slate was so alienated from himself that he never thought to look within,

preferring to skate on the surface of life and devote all his vital energy to fornication.

Thanks to his pretty face, he had no end of volunteers. Julius shook his head as he rifled

through Philip`s chart—three years of sessions, all that relating and support and caring,

all those interpretations without a whisper of progress. Amazing! Perhaps he wasn`t the

therapist he thought he was.

Whoa, don`t jump to conclusions, he told himself. Why would Philip continue for

three years if he had gotten nothing? Why would he continue to spend all that money for

nothing? And God knows Philip hated to spend money. Maybe those sessions had

changed Philip. Maybe hewas a late bloomer—one of those patients who needed time to

digest the nourishment given by the therapist, one of those who stored up some of the

therapist`s good stuff, took it home, like a bone, to gnaw on later, in private. Julius had

known patients so competitive that they hid their improvement just because they didn`t