The Schopenhauer Cure

A Novel

Irvin D. Yalom

To my community of older buddies who grace me with their friendship, share life`s

inexorable diminishments and losses, and continue to sustain me with their wisdom and

dedication to the life of the mind: Robert Berger, Murray Bilmes, Martel Bryant, Dagfinn

Føllesdahl, Joseph Frank, Van Harvey, Julius Kaplan, Herbert Kotz, Morton Lieberman,

Walter Sokel, Saul Spiro, and Larry Zaroff.

24

_________________________

Ifwe do not want to be a

plaything in the hands of

every rogue and the

object of every fool`s

ridicule, the first rule

is to be reserved and

inaccessible.

_________________________

Philip walked for hours after the meeting, past the Palace of Fine Arts, that

decaying colonnade built for the 1915 International Exposition, circled the

adjoining lake twice while watching the swans patrolling their territory, and then

strolled along the marina and Chrissy Field path by San Francisco Bay until he

reached the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. What was it Julius instructed him to

think about? He recalled the instruction to think about Stuart and Rebecca`s gift,

but before he could focus his mind he had already forgotten his assignment. Again

and again he swept his mind clear of all thought and tried to focus on soothing

and archetypal images—the wake of swans, the pirouetting of Pacific waves

under the Golden Gate—but he continued to feel oddly distracted.

He walked through the Presidio, the former military base located on the

overlook of the mouth of the bay, and down to Clement Street with its twenty

blocks of wall–to–wall Asian restaurants. He chose a modest Vietnamese pho

shop, and when his beef–and–tendon soup arrived, he sat quietly for a few

minutes, inhaling the lemongrass vapor rising from the broth and staring at the

glistening mountain of rice noodles. After only a few mouthfuls he requested the

rest be packaged for his dog.

Generally inattentive to food, Philip had routinized his eating habits:

breakfast of toast, marmalade, and coffee, a main meal at noon at the school

student cafeteria, and a small inexpensive evening repast of soup or salad. All

meals, by choice, were taken alone. He took solace, indeed sometimes broke into

a full smile, when he thought of Schopenhauer`s habit of paying for two at his

eating club to ensure that no one sat next to him.

He turned homeward to his one–bedroom cottage, as sparsely furnished as

his office, situated on the grounds of a grand house in Pacific Heights, not far

from Julius`s. The widow, who lived alone in the house, rented the cottage to him

for a modest sum. She needed the additional income, valued her privacy but

wanted an unobtrusive human presence nearby. Philip was the man for the job,

and they had lived in isolated proximity for several years.

The enthusiastic greeting of yelps, barks, tail wagging, and acrobatic leaps

into the air offered by Rugby, his dog, usually cheered Philip, but not on this

evening. Nor did his evening dog walk nor any of his other routine leisure

activities bring Philip tranquillity. He lit his pipe, listened to Beethoven`s Fourth

Symphony, read distractedly from Schopenhauer and Epictetus. His full attention

was caught once, for only a few moments, by one particular Epictetus passage.

If you have an earnest desire towards philosophy, prepare yourself from the

very first to have the multitude laugh and sneer. Remember, if you are

persistent, those very persons will afterwards admire you.... Remember if you

ever happen to turn your attentions to externals, for the pleasure of anyone, be

assured that you have ruined your scheme of life.

Yet his sense of uneasiness remained—an uneasiness that he had not

experienced in some time, a state of mind that in years past had sent him out like a

sexually crazed beast on the prowl. He strode into his tiny kitchen, cleaned his

breakfast dishes from the table, turned on his computer, and submitted to his only

addictive vice: he logged in to the Internet chess club and played five–minute blitz

games silently and anonymously for the next three hours. Mostly, he won. When

he lost it was usually through carelessness, but his irritation was short–lived:

immediately he typed in «seeking a game,” and his eyes lit up with childish

delight as a brand–new game commenced.