The Foundations of Personality Part 10

Lacking these stimuli there is monotony and monotony always has with it as one of its painful features a subjective sense of lowered energy, of fatigue. This is the problem of the housewife and the solitary worker everywhere,--there is failure of the sense of energy due to a failure to receive new stimuli in their most potent form, our fellows.

2. The disappearance or injury of desire and purpose. Let there be a sudden blocking of a purpose or an aim, so that it seems impossible of fulfillment, and energy-feeling drops; movement, thought, even feeling seem painful. The will flags, and the whole world becomes unreal. This is part of the anhedonia we spoke of.

In reality, we have the disappearance of hope as basic in this adynamia. Hope and courage are in part organic, in part are due to the belief that a desired goal can be reached. Whether that goal is health, when one is sick, or riches, or fame, or love and possession, if it is a well-centralized goal toward which our main energies are bent, and then seems suddenly impossible to reach, there is a corresponding paralysis of energy.

Here is where a great difference is seen between individuals and between one time of life and another. There are some to whom hope is a shining beacon light never absent; whatever happens, hope remains, like the beautiful fable of Pandora's box. There are others to whom any obstruction, any discouraging feature, blots out hope, and who constantly need the energy of others; their persuasions and exhortations, for a renewal of energy. Here, as elsewhere in life, some are givers and others takers of energy.

In the presence of the hopeless it is hard to maintain one's own feeling of energy and that is why the average man shuns them. He guards as priceless his own enthusiasm.

Curiously enough, when energy tends to disappear in the face of disaster to one's plans, a tonic is often enough the reflection, "it might have been worse" or "there are others worse off."[1]

Though one rebels against the encouraging effect of the last statement, it does console, it does renew hope. For hope and energy and desire are compet.i.tive, as is every other measure of value. So long as one is not the worst off, then there is something left, there is a hopeful element in the situation.

Similarly a certain rough treatment helps, as when Job is told practically, "After all, who is Man that he should ask for the fulfillment of his hopes?" A sense of littleness with the rest of the race acts to bring resignation, and after that has been established, hope can reappear. For resignation is rarely a prolonged state of mind; it is a doorway through which we reenter into the vista-chambers of Hope.

[1] A humorous use of this fact is in the popular "Cheer up, the worst is yet to come!" This acts as a rough tonic.

And one clearly sees the benefit of a belief, a faith in G.o.d.

"Gott in sein Mizpah ist gerecht," cries the orthodox Jew when his hope is shattered,--"G.o.d's decree is just." This is Hope Eternal; "my purposes are blocked, but were they G.o.d's purposes?

No. He would not then block them. I must seek G.o.d's purposes."

Faith is really a transcendent Hope, renewing the feeling of energy.

3. The belief that one has the good opinion of others is a powerful stimulus to energy and feeling. We have already considered the effect of praise and blame. Some are so const.i.tuted that they need the approval of others at all times; they are at the mercy of any one who gives them a cold look or a harsh word. Others cling to the need of their own self-approval; they are aristocrats, firm and secure in their self-estimate. Let their self-esteem crumble, and these proud and haughty ones are humble, weak, inefficient. We fiercely resent criticism because in it is a threat to our source of energy, our very feeling of being alive.

One has shrewdly to examine his fellow men from this angle: "Does he work up his own steam; are his boilers of energy heated by his own enthusiasm and his own self-approval? Or does he borrow; can he work only if others add their fire to his; does his light go out if his neighbors turn away or are too busy to help him?" One type of man may be as admirable as another in his gifts, but the types need different treatment.

Self-valuation is to a large extent our opinion of the valuation of others of ourselves.[1] We believe people like us, think we are fine and able, or beautiful, and we react with energy to difficulties. We may be wrong; they may call us a conceited a.s.s and laugh at us behind our backs, but so long as we do not find it out, it doesn't matter. There is, however, no blow quite so severe as the sudden realization that we have mistaken the opinion of others, we have been "fooled." To be fooled is to be lowered in one's own self-esteem, and we like sincerity and hate insincerity largely because our self-esteem stands on some solid basis in the one case and on none whatever in the other. Most of us would rather have people say bad things of us to our face than run the risk of the ridicule and the foolish feeling that comes with insincerity. There are some who are always suspicions that people are insincere in praise or friendly words; they hate being fooled, they know of no criterion of sincerity and such people are in an adynamic state most of the time. The difference between the trusting and the suspicious is that one responds with energy and belief to the manifestations of friendliness in everybody, and the other has no such inner response to guide his energy and his actions. Trust in others is a releaser of energy; distrust paralyzes it.

[1] To paraphrase Doctor Holmes the biggest factor in John's self-valuation is HIS idea of Jane's idea of John.

4. Doubt and inability to choose may be contrasted with cert.i.tude and clear choice in their effect on energy release. Of course, one of the signs of lowered energy is doubt, as a sign of high energy is certainty. Nevertheless, a situation of critical importance, in which choice is difficult or digagreeable, inhibits energy feeling[1] and discharge perhaps as much as any other mental factor. Especially is this true when the inhibition concerns a moral situation--"Ought I to do this or that"--and where the fear of being wrong or doing wrong operates so that the individual does nothing and develops an obsession of doubt. This "to be or not to be" att.i.tude is typical of many intelligent people, yes, even intellectual people. They we so many angles to a situation, they project so far into the future in their thoughts, that a weary discouragement comes. To such as these, the counsel of "action right or wrong but action anyway!" is good, but the difficulty is to make them overcome their doubts.

Their cerebral oscillation makes them weary but they cannot seem to stop it; their pendulum of choice never stops at action.

[1] See William James' "Varieties of Religious Experiences," for beautiful examples. The Russian writers are often narrators of this struggle.

If one wishes to destroy the energy of any one, the best way to do it is to sow the seeds of doubt. "Your ideal is a fine one, my friend, but--isn't it a little soph.o.m.oric?" "A nice piece of work, but--who wants it?" On the other hand, to one obsessed by doubt it may happen that a whole-hearted endors.e.m.e.nt, a resolution of the doubt, brings with it first relief and then a swing of energy into the channels of action.

5. Compet.i.tion is a great factor in energy release. Every one has seen a horse ambling along, apparently without sufficient energy to go more than four miles an hour. Suddenly he c.o.c.ks up his ears as the sounds of the hoof beats of a rapidly traveling horse are heard. He shakes his head and to the amazement or amus.e.m.e.nt of his driver sets off in rivalry at a two-minute clip. Intensely cooperative and gregarious as man is, he is as intensely compet.i.tive, spurred on by his observations of the other fellow.

Introduce a definite system of rivalry into a school or an office, and you release energies never manifested before. There are some to whom this is the main releaser of energy; struggle, compet.i.tion and victory over another is their stimulus. They can play no game unless there is compet.i.tion, and the solitary pleasures and satisfactions, like reading, exploring, a row on the river or a walk in the woods, cannot arouse them. Others dislike rivalry or compet.i.tion; they are too sympathetic to wish victory over another and also they dread to lose. They prefer team play and cooperation. The world will always seem different to these two types. This may be said now that for most of us, who are somewhat of a blend in this matter, rivalry is pleasant and stimulating when there is a show of success, but we prefer cooperation when we foresee failure.

This brings up the interesting phase of precedent in energy release. Early success, unless it brings too high a self-valuation, which is its great danger, is remarkably valuable in releasing energy, and failure establishes a precedent that may bring doubt, fear and the attendant inhibition of energy. Of course, failure may bring with it caution and a recasting of plans and thus const.i.tute the most valuable of experiences. But if it is too great, or if there is lacking a certain fort.i.tude, it may act as a paralyzer of energy thenceforth. In the prize ring this is often noted; the spirit of a man goes with a defeat and he never again has self-confidence; thereafter his energy is constantly inhibited.

Emotions have long been studied in their effects on energy. In fact, every animal that bristles and snarls as it faces a foe is, unconsciously, attempting to paralyze with fear its opponent, to render it helpless through the inhibition of action. So with the lurking tiger; it waits in silence for the prey and seeks the fascination of surprise as a factor in victory. On the other hand, the emotion of fear may be a releaser of energy for the prospective victim; it may release the energies of flight and add to the power of the animal. In this, there is a unique and neglected phase of emotion, i.e., if you shake your fist at your enemy and he runs away or knocks you down, then your manifestation of anger has been unsuccessful for you but his reaction has been successful for him. If he becomes so paralyzed with fear that you can work your will with him, then your anger is successful while his fear is not. Most of the psychologists have neglected this phase of emotion. Thus it is hard to understand the use fainting from terror has to the victim. The answer is it is useful to him who has caused the victim to faint.

6. For the individual, the emotion of fear has as its function a preparation for a danger that is foreseen to be too powerful to be met with effective resistance. Fear says, "It's no use to fight, fly or hide." Therefore, normally there is a heightening of energy feeling and action in these two directions. There are plenty of recorded incidents where fear has enabled men to run distances utterly impossible to them otherwise. In the fear states of mental disease, the resistance a frail woman will offer to her attendants is such that the utmost strength of several people is required to restrain her. Under these circ.u.mstances fear acts as an energizer, causing physical reactions not ordinarily within the will of the person. "Fear lends wings," is the time-honored way of expressing this. The trapped animal makes "frantic" efforts to escape.

Fear is extraordinarily contagious, perhaps because as herd members the cry of fear sets us all racing for safety. This is the grimmest danger from fires in public places or the presence of a coward in a military unit. Panic occurs with its blind unreasoning flight, and the result is disastrous. I emphasize again that emotions are poorly adapted to the welfare of the individual. Business panics are in large measure the result of the contagiousness of fear; timidity spreads like wildfire, distrust and suspicion are aroused and stagnation results without a "real" basis. In President Wilson's phrase, the panic is "purely psychological."

Intellectualized, fear becomes one of the driving forces of life, as Hobbes[1] pointed out. Fear of punishment undoubtedly deters from crime, though it is not in itself sufficient, and the kind of punishment becomes important. Fear of hunger has brought prudence, caution, agriculture into the world. Life insurance has its root in fear for others, who are really part of one's self; the fear of the rainy day is back of most of the thrift, though the acquisitive feeling and duty may also operate powerfully.

Fear of venereal disease impels many a man to continence who otherwise would follow his desire. And fear of the bad opinion of others is the most powerful deterrent force in the world. "What will people say" is, at bottom, fear that they will say bad things, and though it keeps men from the "bad" conduct, it inhibits the finer n.o.bler actions as well. There is a great deal of unconventional untrammeled belief in the world that never finds expression because of fear.

How deeply the fear of death modifies the life of people it is impossible to state. To every one there comes the awful reflection that he, that warmly pulsating being, in love with the world and with living, "center of the universe," HE himself must die, must be cold and still and have no will, no power, no feeling; be buried in the ground. Most of the essential melancholy of the world is due to this realization, and most of the feeling of pessimism and futility thus has its origin. Mortal man--a worm of the earth--a brief flower doomed to perish--and all of it finds final expression in Gray's marvelous words:

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

[1] Hobbes made fear the most important motive in the conduct of man.

"Why strive, thou poor creature, for wealth and power; sink thyself in the, G.o.dhead!" "Turn, turn from vain pursuits; fame, the bubble, is bound to break as thou art." This is one type of reaction against this fear,--for men react to the fear of death variously. If man is mortal, G.o.d is not, and there is a life everlasting. The life everlasting--whether a reality or not--is conjured up and believed in by an effort to compensate for the fear of death.

I have a son who, when he was three, manifested great emotion if death were to enter in a story. "Will anything happen?" he would ask, meaning, "Will death enter?" And if so, he would beg not to have that story told. But when he was four, he heard some one say that there were people who took old automobiles apart, fixed up the parts and these were then placed in other automobiles.

"That's what G.o.d does to us," he cried triumphantly. "When we die, He takes us apart and puts us into babies, and we live again." Thereafter he would discuss death as fearlessly as he spoke of dinner, and all his fears vanished. Here was a typical rationalization of fear, one that has helped to shape religion, philosophies, ways of living. And the widespread belief in immortality is a compensation and a rationalization of the fear of death.

If some men rationalize in this fashion, others take directly opposite means. "Eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die."

The popularity of Omar Khayyam rests upon the aptness of his statement of this side of the case of Man vs. Death, and many a man who never heard of him has recklessly plunged into dissipation on the theory, "a short life and a merry one." This is more truly a pessimism than is the ascetic philosophy.

"Well, then, I must die," says another. "Oh, that I might achieve before death comes!" So men, appalled by the brief tenure of life and the haphazard way death strikes, work hard, spurred on by the wish to leave a great work behind them. This work becomes a Self, left behind, and here the fear of death is compensated for by a little longer life in the form of achievement.

Many a father and mother, looking at their children, feel this as part of their compensation for parenthood. "I shall die and leave some one behind me," means, "I shall die and yet I shall, in another form, live." Part of the incentive to parenthood, in a time which knows how to prevent parenthood and which shirks it as disagreeable, is the fear of death, of personal annihilation. For there is in death a blow to one's pride, an indignity in this annihilation,--Nothingness.

There is a still larger reaction to the fear of death. I have stated that the feeling of likeness is part of the feeling of brotherhood and in death is one of the three great likenesses of man. We are born of the labor of our mothers, our days are full of strife and trouble and we die. Men's minds have lingered on these facts. "Man that is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble." Job did not add to this that he dies, but elsewhere it appears as the bond for mankind. Reacting to this, the reflective minds of the race have felt that here was the unity of man, here the basis of a brotherhood. True, the Fatherhood of G.o.d was given as a logical reason, but always in every appeal there is the note, "Do we not all die? Why hate one another then?"

So to the fear of death, as with every other fear, man has reacted basely and n.o.bly. Man is the only animal that foresees death and he is the only one to elaborate ethics and religion.

There is more than an accidental connection between these two facts.

Fear in its foreseeing character is termed worry. As a phase of character, the liability to worry is of such importance that book after book has dealt with the subject,--emphasizing the dangers, the futility and cowardice of it. It is surely idle to tell people not to worry who live continually on the brink of economic disaster, or who are facing real danger. But there are types who find in every possibility of injury a formidable threat, who are thrown into anguish when they contemplate any evil, remote or unlikely as it may be. The present and future are not faced with courage or equanimity; they present themselves as a never-ending series of threats; threat to health, to fortune, to family, reputation, everything. Horace Fletcher called this type of forethought "fear thought." Men and women, brave enough when face to face with actualities, are cowards when confronting remote possibilities. The housewife especially is one of these worriers, and her mind has an affinity for the terrible. I have described her elsewhere,[1] but she has her prototype among men.

[1] "The Nervous Housewife."

Fear of this type is an injury to the body and character both and is one of the causes and effects of the widespread neurasthenia of our day. For fear injures sleep, and this brings on fatigue and fatigue breeds more fear, --a vicious circle indeed. Fear disturbs digestion and the energy of the organism is thereby lowered. The greatest damage by worry is done in the hypochondriac, the worrier about health. Here, in addition to the effects of fear, introspection and a minute attention to every pain and ache demoralize the character, for the sufferer cannot pay attention to anything else. He becomes selfish, ego-centric and without the wholesome interest in life as an adventure. I doubt if there is enough good in too minute a popular education on disease and health preservation. Morbid attention to health often results, an evil worse than sickness.

Sometimes, instead of the indiscriminate fear of worry, there are localized fears, called phobias, which creep or spring into a man's thoughts and render him miserable. Thus there is fear of high places, of low places, of darkness, of open places, of closed places,--fear of dirt, fear of poison and of almost everything else. A bright young man was locked, at the age of fourteen, in a closed dark shanty; when released he rushed home in the greatest terror. Since then he has been afflicted with a fear of leaving home. He dares venture only about fifty feet and then is impelled to run back. If anybody hinders his return he attacks them; if the door is locked he breaks through a window.

He is in a veritable panic, and yet presents no other fears; is a reader and thinker, clever at his work (he is a painter), but his fear remains inaccessible and uncontrollable. Often one experience of this kind builds up an obsessive fear; the a.s.sociations left by the experience give the fear an open pathway to consciousness, without any inhibiting power. As in this case, the whole life of the individual becomes changed.

Throughout history the man without fear has been idolized. The hero is courageous, that he must be; the coward is despised, whatever good may be in him. Consequently, there is in most men a fear of showing fear; and pride, self-respect, often urge men on when they really fear. This pride is greater in some races than others--in the Indian and the Anglo-Saxon--but the Oriental does not think it wrong to be afraid. In the Great War this fear of showing fear played a great role in producing sh.e.l.l shock, in that men shrank from actual cowardice but easily developed neuroses which carried them from the fighting line.

There is this to add to this little sketch of fear: it turns easily to anger for both are responses to a threat. I remember in my boyhood being mortally afraid of a larger boy who one day chased me, caught me and started to "beat me up." Before I knew it, the fear had gone and I was fighting him with such fierceness and fury that in amazement he ran away. So a rat, cornered, becomes fierce and blood-thirsty and there is always the danger, in the use of fear as a weapon, that it become changed quite readily into the fighting spirit.

7. Anger is a primitive reaction and is the backbone of the fighting spirit. It tends to displace fear, though it may be combined with it, in one of the most unhappy --because helpless--mental states. Anger in its commonest form is a violent energizer and in the stiffened muscles, the set jaw, bared teeth, and the forward-thrust head and arms one sees the animal prepared to fight. Anger is aroused at any obstruction, any threat or injury, from physical violences to the so-called "slight." In fact, it is the intent of the opponent as understood that makes up the stimulus to anger in the human being. We forgive a blow if it is accidental, but even a touch, if in malice or in contempt, arouses a fierce reaction.

We call becoming angry too readily "losing the temper," and there is a type known as the irascible in whom anger is the readiest emotion. The bluff English squire, the man in authority, is this type, and his anger lasts. In its lesser form anger becomes irritability, a reaction common to the neurotic and the weak.

When anger is not frank, but manifests itself by a lowered brow and sidelong look, we speak of sullenness or surliness. The sullen or surly person, chronically ill-tempered and hostile, is regarded as unsocial and dangerous, whereas the most lovable persons are quick to anger and quick to repent.

As a man's anger, so is he. There are some whose anger is always a reaction against interference with their comfort, their dignity, their property and their will; it never by any chance is aroused by the wrongs of others. Usually, however, these folk camouflage their motive. "It's the principle of the thing I object to," is its commonest social disguise, which sometimes successfully hides the real motive from the egoist himself.

Wherever wills and purposes meet in conflict, there anger, or its offshoot, contempt, is present, and the more egoistic one is, the more egoistic the sources of anger.