How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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emotions, reactions are unconsciously created to order. The anxiety neurotic, whose goal is super-security, trains himself by dreaming of dangerous situations from which he awakens, shaking with fear, wet with perspiration, and reinforced with a conscious motto “ Take care ! The world is dangerous ! ” to take care and precaution during his waking life. The homosexual man trains himself to prefer men by looking only at handsome youths, and confining his experiences with women to frowzy prosti¬ tutes or unattractive old women. Every neurosis is a profession which requires a long and arduous preparatory training. This training is transparent to the experienced psychiatrist. The fifth neurotic commandment reads : Day and night shalt thou train thyself, by thought and by dream, by creed and by the creation of moods, affects, emotions, feelings, likes and dislikes, to approach directly thy goal of subjective super-security and subjective superiority. 6. The substitution of “ I cannot ” for “ I will not ” by the construction of an apparently logical scapegoat whose existence is accepted as an excuse for failure, is the sixth fundamental characteristic of the neurosis. Every intelligent human being is dimly aware of his obligation to cooperate in the world’s work. When early condition¬ ing factors lead him to believe that he is incapable of joining with his fellows in the cooperation of social life, he must establish a set of extenuating circumstances which tend to exonerate him for his personal failure. Society knows that the sick and the lame cannot contribute as well as the hale and the healthy. The neurotic capitalizes this fact by playing sick. This is no conscious, malicious malingering. The neurotic really believes he is ill, suffers his symptoms as much as, or more than, a really sick individual, and can usually point to very good evidences of his incapacity. He must deceive himself before he can deceive others. The leitmotiv or theme-song of every neurosis is to be found in the words “ if ” and “ but ”. “ I would gladly play the piano in public but I suffer from stage fright ” says the neurotic artist, thus saving his face and demonstrating