{"id":32515,"date":"2019-07-28T00:02:46","date_gmt":"2019-07-27T21:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/?p=32515&lang=en"},"modified":"2019-07-27T01:06:40","modified_gmt":"2019-07-26T22:06:40","slug":"but-remember-im-aging-so-dont-wait-too-long-part-b-1829b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lecturesbureau.gr\/1\/but-remember-im-aging-so-dont-wait-too-long-part-b-1829b\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"But remember: I\u2019m aging. So don\u2019t wait too long (Irvin D. Yalom) | Part B’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cI fly to Odessa tonight,\u201d she said as we began the following day, \u201cand I slept so poorly because of you that I\u2019m not very sad this is our last meeting. Your words about Sergei were cruel, you know. Very cruel. Please answer this question: Do you speak like that to all your patients?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease consider it a compliment to the strength I see in you.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a slightly quizzical expression she pursed her lips, started to answer, but then checked herself and instead took a long look at me. She exhaled and leaned back into her chair. Then she said, \u201cAll right, I hear you. I\u2019m ready. Listening. Waiting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease begin by telling me more about the thoughts that kept you awake last night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI slept only in short bursts because most of the night I was haunted by one dream which kept going on and on with one version after another. I am visiting the Congo with some delegation, and suddenly I can\u2019t find any of the others, and I am alone. I realize I may be in the most dangerous spot on earth, and I get panicky. Then, in one version, I am walking in a deserted neighborhood knocking on doors and finding them all bolted and no one around. In another version, I enter a deserted house and hide in a closet as I hear loud pounding footsteps approaching outside. Or, in another version, I use my cell phone to call my delegation, but I do not know my location, and so I cannot tell them where I am. I suggest they bring lanterns and wave them, so I can see them from the window. But then I realize I am in a huge city, and that is a hopeless suggestion.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/i>And so it went all night long, waiting in terror for some horror to find and to take me.\u201d She put her hand on her chest. \u201cEven now my heart is pounding just telling you the dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA nightmare continuing all night long. How terrible! What hunches do you have about the dream? Think about it, and tell me whatever comes to mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know I read something in the paper the other day about atrocities in Africa and the children\u2019s army killing all in their path, but I stopped myself from reading too much. I always have a bad night after reading something like that. If I see a killing on TV, I turn it off, and I can\u2019t count the many movies I\u2019ve walked out of for the same reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep going. Tell me all you remember of that dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s all. I\u2019m in a spot where, over and over, my life is in danger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThink of that statement, \u2018My life is in danger.\u2019 Just free-associate to it, by which I mean: you try to let your mind run free and just observe it as though from a distance and describe all the thoughts that run across it, almost as though you were watching a screen.\u201d<\/p>\n

After exhaling and flashing a look of exasperation, Natasha leaned her head against the back of her chair and whispered, \u201cMy life is in danger, my life is in danger,\u201d and then grew silent.<\/p>\n

After a minute or two, I prodded her, \u201cA little louder, please.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what\u00a0you<\/i>\u00a0want to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you don\u2019t want to say it to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cTry imagining this,\u201d I continued. \u201cYou continue to be silent here today until our time is up. Imagine you are leaving my office. How\u00a0then<\/i>\u00a0would you feel?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll right! I\u2019ll say it!\u00a0Of course<\/i>\u00a0my life is in danger! I\u2019m sixty-nine years old. How much life do I have ahead? My life was all back there. My real life!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour real life? You mean on the stage, dancing with Sergei?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid\u00a0you<\/i>\u00a0ever dance?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly tap dancing. I used to imitate all the Fred Astaire routines, sometimes at home, sometimes outside on the street.\u201d<\/p>\n

Natasha\u2019s eyes popped open, and she stared at me in astonishment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m joking. I\u2019m one of the world\u2019s worst dancers, but I\u2019m an avid watcher, and I can imagine how glorious it was for you to perform before those large applauding audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re quite playful for a psychiatrist, you know. And a bit seductive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow is that for you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood. Then teach me about the real life back then.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLife was so exhilarating. The crowds, the photographers, the heavenly music, the costumes, and Sergei\u2014believe me, one of the most beautiful men in the world\u2014and the alcohol and the intoxication of the dance and, yes, the wild sex. Everything that has followed pales in comparison.\u201d Natasha, who had been sitting on the edge of her chair as she spoke, now relaxed and leaned back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere do your thoughts go now?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s something I should tell you: lately I\u2019ve been having a strange thought, that every day I live now, even a very good day, is also a day of sorrow because it takes me further and further from my real life. Is that not odd?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s as I said earlier. It\u2019s as though that real life still exists in suspended animation. And if we had the right transportation, we could go to it, and you could show me around and point out all the familiar things. You know what I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

When Natasha nodded, I went on. \u201cAnd in a way that idea is the key to understanding your trip to the museum. You weren\u2019t just looking for Sergei; you were looking for your lost life, even though the adult part of your mind knows that everything is transient, that the past exists only in the mind and your early world is now only a memory, an electric or chemical signal stored somewhere in your brain.<\/p>\n

\u201cNatasha,\u201d I continued, \u201cI understand your situation in life. I\u2019m a lot older than you, and I am dealing with the same issues. For me one of the darkest things about death is that when I die, my whole world\u2014that is, my world of memories, that rich world peopled by everyone I\u2019ve ever known, that world that seems so rooted in granite\u2014will vanish with me. Poof! Just like that. The last couple of weeks I\u2019ve been cleaning out boxes of old papers and photos, and I look at them, perhaps a picture of some street in my childhood neighborhood or some friend or relative whom no one else alive ever knew, and I throw them away, and each time I do, something shudders inside as I see pieces of my old real world flaking away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Natasha drew a deep breath and in a softer voice said, \u201cI understand everything you say. Thank you for telling me that. It means a lot when you speak personally like this. I know you speak the truth, but it is hard to absorb such truth. I tell you something: right now, at this very moment, I feel Sergei vibrating in my mind. I know he struggles to stay there, to stay in existence, dancing forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to say something more about Sergei,\u201d I told her. \u201cI know a lot of people who have gone back to high school reunions and immediately fell in love, sometimes with an old boyfriend, often with someone they did not know well. Many settled into a late-life marriage, some successful, but some disastrous. I believed many of them loved via association, that is they loved youthful joyousness, their early school days, and their dreamy anticipations of an exciting life, stretching out magically and immeasurably before them. But it wasn\u2019t falling in love with someone in particular. It was making that person a symbol of all that joyousness of their youths. What I\u2019m trying to say is that Sergei was part of that magical time of youth, and because he was there at that time you imbued him with love\u2014that is,\u00a0you put the love into him<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Natasha remained silent. After a couple of minutes I asked, \u201cWhat\u2019s passing through your mind during this silence?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thinking about your book title,\u00a0Love\u2019s Executioner<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you feel I\u2019m being love\u2019s executioner with you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot deny that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep in mind that you told me you fell in love with Pavel and have had a marvelous life with him, and when you said that, I felt nothing but pleasure about you and him. So it\u2019s not love I\u2019m stalking. My prey is the mirage of love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cA little louder.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hear such a soft voice, a whisper, inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it says?\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt says, \u2018Damn you, I\u2019m not giving Sergei up.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt requires time, and you have to go about this at your own pace. Let me ask you a different question: I wonder if you\u2019ve experienced any change since we started?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cChange? What do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYesterday you described that awful dizzying feeling of being\u00a0outside of life, of not experiencing anything, of not being present.\u00a0Is that symptom any different now? It seems to me you are very much here in our sessions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t deny that\u2014you are right. I cannot be more \u2018here\u2019 than right now. Holding my feet in boiling oil does powerfully concentrate my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think me cruel?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCruel? Not exactly cruel, but tough, real tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

I glanced at the clock. Only a few minutes remained. How to use them most effectively?<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder, Natasha, if you have questions you want to ask me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHmm, that\u2019s unusual. Yes, I have a question. How do\u00a0you<\/i>\u00a0do it? How do you cope with being eighty and feeling the end approaching closer and closer?\u201d<\/p>\n

As I thought about my reply, she said, \u201cNo, I\u2019m the cruel one. Forgive me, I shouldn\u2019t have asked that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing cruel in your question. I like your asking it. I\u2019m trying to formulate, to put together, an honest answer. There\u2019s a Schopenhauer quote that compares love passion with the blinding sun. When it dims in later years, we suddenly become aware of the wondrous starry heavens that had been obscured, or hidden, by the sun. So for me the vanishing of youthful, sometimes tyrannical, passions has made me appreciate the starry skies more and all wonders of being alive, wonders that I had previously overlooked. I\u2019m in my eighties, and I\u2019ll tell you something unbelievable: I\u2019ve never felt better or more at peace with myself. Yes, I know my existence is drawing to a close, but the end has been there since the beginning. What is different now is that I treasure the pleasures of sheer awareness, and I\u2019m fortunate enough to share them with my wife, whom I\u2019ve known almost all of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you. Once again, I tell you how important it is when you speak personally to me. It\u2019s funny, but just as you were speaking, a dream that I had earlier this week sprang into my mind. I had forgotten it, but it\u2019s just come back, and it\u2019s very clear now. I was walking on a deserted road, and somehow I knew that the last one who used this road was my dog, Baloo. Then I saw Baloo by the side of the road and went to him, leaned over, and looked right into his eyes. And I thought,\u00a0You and I are both living souls,\u00a0<\/i>and then I thought,\u00a0I\u2019m no better than him.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the feelings that accompany this dream?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first I was so glad to see my dog again. You see, Baloo died three weeks before we left for the US. He was my companion for sixteen years, and I\u2019ve had a hard time getting over my sadness. In fact I welcomed my trip to the US because I thought it might help me get over my grief. Are you a dog owner? If not, you won\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019m a cat lover, though, and I think I can appreciate the depth of your pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

She hesitated and nodded as though she were satisfied with my answer. \u201cYes, it was very deep. My husband says too deep. He thinks I was over-attached to Baloo and that he was a substitute child. I don\u2019t think I told you that I have no children.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, in the dream, you\u2019re traveling on the same road that Baloo took weeks before, and then you looked deep into his eyes and said, \u2018We\u2019re both living souls, and I\u2019m no better than you.\u2019 What do you think the dream is trying to communicate?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what\u00a0you\u2019d<\/i>\u00a0think.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTell me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat I know I\u2019m walking on the road to death like Baloo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike all living souls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, like all living souls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you, what do\u00a0you<\/i>\u00a0think?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this whole conversation is making things worse for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that you\u2019re more uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA few more healing sessions like this, and I\u2019ll need to go home by ambulance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the symptoms you described yesterday\u2014being removed from life, being insulated, not being in your life\u2014all served to anesthetize yourself from the pain inherent in being a living soul. Let\u2019s look at how we began. You entered my office with your photograph\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh no, not that again!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know you forbade me to discuss it, but I\u2019m disobeying you because it\u2019s too important. Please listen to what I\u2019m going to say. You know all this already. I\u2019m not telling you anything you don\u2019t already know.\u00a0<\/i>It\u2019s just easier to fend off something told to you from the outside than it is something rising from the depths of yourself. I believe that some part of you had already arrived at the same conclusion I\u2019m suggesting to you. It\u2019s all there in that dream about traveling the same road as Baloo. I\u2019m struck that your dream, which offers the key to our puzzle, returned to you just as we prepared to stop. And the photograph you gave me at the beginning was a hint to me about what direction I should take with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou say I knew all this? You give me far, far too much credit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think so. I\u2019m just siding with the part of you where wisdom dwells.\u201d<\/p>\n

We both looked at the clock. We had run over several minutes. As Natasha rose and collected her things, she said, \u201cMay I get back to you by email or Skype if I have more questions?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course. But remember: I\u2019m aging. So don\u2019t wait too long.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Creatures of a Day<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n

Irvin D. Yalom<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI fly to Odessa tonight,\u201d she said as we began the following day, \u201cand I slept so poorly because of you that I\u2019m not very sad this is our last meeting. Your words about Sergei were cruel, you know. Very cruel. 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Your words about Sergei were cruel, you know. Very cruel. 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