How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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a cold sweat and vomited copiously whenever she saw a
cat. A third neurotic with leanings toward yoga
philosophies cultivated an hysterical anaesthesia of the
skin as a result of long training. He enjoyed nothing so
much as allowing people to stick darning needles
through his flesh and his tongue, thus attaining a sub¬
jective sense of being different at the cost of his integrity
as a human being.
We have seen many claustrophobiacs, people who have
been afraid of being shut up in a room or buried alive,
but we have never seen one of them who has invented a
device for getting out of a burning building or for
extricating oneself from the inside of a locked vault.
While the neurosis is always extremely useful to the
neurotic it is universally useless to the rest of the world.
Thou shalt he futile. Let thy neurosis be graceful if possible,
clever and unusual if yon can make it so, but keep it thy own,
and allow none to enjoy its usufructs ! is the ninth neurotic
commandment.
io. The inevitable consequences of a neurotic pattern
of life are social isolation and the constriction or distortion
of human horizons. The neurotic’s cult of uniqueness is
not countenanced graciously by his fellow-men, but social
isolation plays an extremely useful rdle in the neurotic
scheme of things. Not only does it lessen the risk, but it
precludes all tests of personal validity and simultaneously
heightens the neurotic’s sense of self-esteem.
After one has practised seclusion and isolation for a
considerable length of time, the neurotic premise, that
the world is a bad place to live in, becomes true. The
world very quickly discovers the neurotic’s attitude of
passive resistance and non-cooperation, and punishes him
for his bad manners. The less society countenances the
neurotic’s behaviour, the more he feels justified in
resisting the common-sense laws of cooperation and
participation in the world’s work. The consequent
restriction of his mental horizon finally robs him of the
very opportunities for ego-expansion which alone could
vouchsafe him an objective sense of superiority.