How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
157/400
138 (canvas 158)
The image contains the following text:
character of every human being. The completely self-less
man has not yet been born, and if he were born we might
expect him to have a sense of inferiority because he would
be so different from all other human beings. The
intelligent human being, therefore, will not try to rid
his character of vanity, egoism, self-centredness and
similar character traits, as if they were so many devils.
There are some “ saints ” and some oriental fakirs who
believe that they can attain true humility by torturing
the flesh. Theirs is a misguided and frenzied sanctity.
The great defect of such saintly labours is their complete
futility. Self-torture and the martyrdom of the flesh are
not humility but parodies of humility. As often as not
the vanity of the saint and fakir peeps out of the holes
of his ragged clothes or exudes slimily from his self-
inflicted wounds. The objectionable but honest skunk
makes a more pleasant household pet than a thoroughly
un-egoistic man or woman exuding the odour of sancti¬
moniousness. Humility is a virtue in the social sense,
but it quickly becomes a vice when it is made the chief
activity of life. No virtue is sufficiently important to
deserve the total investment of our life’s energies. The
art of life demands a battery of virtues, not one single
virtue carried to excess.
What then shall we do with vanity and egoism, if
these universal, un-social traits are ubiquitously present
in the personality scheme of every human being ? The
art of attaining happiness consists in taking egoism and
vanity and diverting them into socially useful channels.
If you are vain because you have a pretty face, a fur coat,
an eight-cylinder car, ten thousand pounds in the bank,
or a genealogical tree going back to the Norman Conquest,
your pride and vanity are childish. One little strepto¬
coccus may easily kill you and deprive you of your basis
for self-esteem. A playful hurricane may rob you of all
your possessions. It is unwise to be vain about any
possession, because possessions are notorious for their
perverse tendency to vanish. Just as happiness consists
in doing something, never in being something or having