How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.

acting like a gorilla. Each has a unit pattern of adjust¬ ment which is characteristic and unchanging for the species. Social Life as a Compensation Man is no exception to the rule. Man’s characteristic pattern of solving the difficulties of existence is the formation of social groups and communities. An isolated human being is as inconceivable as a thin-skinned rhinoceros. So far as we know from historical data and archaeological researches men have always lived in groups. A human child, isolated from the community of its parents, would die miserably in a few days. An isolated man could maintain his life only by virtue of knowledge gained from other human beings. The com¬ munity, whether in the form of the family, clan, tribe, nation, or race, is an essential of human life. Society is man’s first and last line of defence against the inexorable forces of nature. It follows logically, therefore, that a successful human being must be a member of a group. The well-adjusted member of the social group as nearly attains complete security as any human being can. The converse is like¬ wise true : the isolated human being—and it makes little difference whether he is isolated physically, mentally, or emotionally from his fellows—suffers man’s sense of inferiority the more keenly because he has not availed himself of the protection of his group, the only device that man has found an unfailing bulwark against nature. One of the first rules, therefore, in the art of being a complete human being, and thus attaining the sense of happiness which accompanies the good life, is to make yourself socially adjusted. Look around you, in your office, in your club, in your church, in your family circle, and count the number of people who are well-poised and happy in the companionship of their fellows. The majority of human failures make their first mistakes in this important human activity. As a matter of fact, loneliness is the most dangerous plague of civilization.