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

adjustment is necessary for security—is the situation of nightly sleep. Sleep is one of the few biological phenomena in which isolation is desirable. Here isolation enables the body to recuperate its powers for the arduous tasks of social adjustment during the day. To the individual who suffers from an inferiority complex, who is therefore already isolated, sleep presents a major danger because it intensifies this isolation to pathological proportions. A man asleep may be likened to an army in camp. Only a few sentinels are posted for contact with reality. If the army is camped for summer manoeuvres only a few sentinels are necessary. The normal sleeping man is like an army in its summer camp. He sleeps soundly and securely in the realization of his value as a unit in the social organism. In the morning, he is wakened by the few sentinels, his eyes, his ears, his sense of passing time, which he has posted to keep him in touch with reality. The human being with an inferiority complex, however, is like an army on the battlefield. Here most of the army is on guard and only a few individuals are allowed to sleep at a time. The man with the inferiority complex lives like a stranger in a hostile country. To sleep under such circumstances would be fatal. He must remain awake in order to maintain his armed isolation. We find thus that one of the commonest symptoms of the inferiority complex, insomnia, fits into our scheme and justifies the premisses which we have drawn from biology. What is commonly known as “ nervousness ” is another expression of the inferiority complex. Here again we find a counterpart of the fear which primitive man experienced when separated from his fellows. It is well known that fear is accompanied in man and animal by greater emotional tension and greater muscular activity. In situations where fear may be considered a normal expression, this greater tension and activity, with the chemical changes that take place in the body as a result of this emotion, are worth-while, useful activities designed