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

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