How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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characteristics are : 1, ignorance of the meaning of life
and the value of social cooperation ; 2, the primacy of
the individual ego and the cult of individual unique¬
ness ; 3, an emotional undercurrent of fear ; 4, the
establishment of a subjective sense of power and security ;
5, purposiveness in the attainment of the neurotic goal ;
6, the substitution of “ I cannot ” for “ I will not ” ;
7, the creation of a scapegoat ; 8, the cult of personal
irresponsibility for failure ; 9, futility ; and, finally,
10, isolation and the constriction of the sphere of activity
to the bare minimum consonant with life. When we
examine these ten cardinal points of the neurosis more
closely we can understand the psychodynamics of neurotic
behaviour and establish the unity of all neuroses.
1. The first point, ignorance of the meaning of life
and the value of social cooperation, is perhaps the clearest
index of all neurotic behaviour. All neurotics are
individualists, par excellence, and are interested in the
cult of their own personality as a goal in life. The neurotic
ego is the most precious jewel in the cosmos, to the
neurotic. The ego must be kept intact and unbruised by
the evil forces of a bad world and selfish, ignorant people.
This attitude bespeaks a certain infantilism which is
normal in the case of a child who has not learned to find
satisfaction in the use of his powers for social good.
Egoism is natural in a child, but egoism projected
beyond maturity is a neurosis. The egoistic neurotic
finds little comfort in a world in which service and
cooperation are the criteria of appreciation, and deduces
that the world is bad, its problems not worth solving, and
its opinion false and unjustified. Herein lies the basic
ignorance of the neurotic. The meaning of life is to be
found only when you have cooperated in the world’s
work, and contributed to the best of your ability to the
commonwealth ; but the neurotic has been so busily
occupied in the cult of his ego that he has not discovered
this basic law of human life. If we grant the neurotic
his fundamental fallacy, we must agree that the rest of
his life’s pattern is logical and rational. We may now