_In which we learn discrimination_
CHOOSING OUR EMOTIONS
LIKING THE TASTE
It was a summer evening by the seaside, and a group of us were sitting
on the porch, having a sort of heart-to-heart talk about
psychology,--which means, of course, that we were talking about
ourselves. One by one the different members of the family spoke out
the questions that had been troubling them, or brought up their
various problems of character or of health. At length a splendid Red
Cross nurse who had won medals for distinguished service in the early
days of the war, broke out with the question: "Doctor, how can I get
rid of my terrible temper? Sometimes it is very bad, and always it has
been one of the trials of my life." She spoke earnestly and sincerely,
but this was my answer: "You like your temper. Something in you enjoys
it, else you would give it up." Her face was a study in astonishment.
"I don't like it," she stammered; "always after I have had an
outburst of anger I am in the depths of remorse. Many a time I have
cried my eyes out over this very thing." "And you like that, too," I
answered. "You are having an emotional spree, indulging yourself first
in one kind of emotion and then in another. If you really hated it as
much as you say you do, you would never allow yourself the indulgence,
much less speak of it afterward." Her astonishment was still further
increased when several of the group said they, too, had sensed her
satisfaction with her moods.
Hard as it is to believe, we do choose our emotions. We like emotion
as we do salt in our food, and too often we choose it because
something in us likes the savor, and not because it leads to the
character or the conduct that we know to be good.
THE POWER OF CHOICE
Whether we believe it or not, and whether we like it or not, the fact
remains that we ourselves decide which of all the possible emotions we
shall choose, or we decide not to press the button for any emotion at
all.
To a very large extent man, if he knows how and really wishes, may
select the emotion which is suitable in that it leads to the right
conduct, has a beneficial effect on the body, adapts him to his social
environment, and makes him the kind of man he wants to be.
=The Test of Feeling.= The psychologist to-day has a sure test of
character. He says in substance: "Tell me what you feel and I will
tell you what you are. Tell me what things you love, what things you
fear, and what makes you angry and I will describe with a fair degree
of accuracy your character, your conduct, and a good deal about the
state of your physical health."
Since this test of emotion is fundamentally sound, it is not
surprising that the nervous man is in a state of distress.
Indigestion, fatigue, over-sensibility, sound like problems in
physiology, but we cannot go far in the discussion of any of them
without coming face to face with the emotions as the real factors in
the case. When we turn to the mental characteristics of nervous folk,
we even more quickly find ourselves in the midst of an emotional
disturbance. Worried, fearful, anxious, self-pitying, excitable, or
melancholy, the nervous person proves that whatever else a neurosis
may be, it is, in essence, a riot of the emotions.
There is small wonder that a riot at the heart of the empire should
lead to insurrection in every province of the personality. It is only
for the purpose of discussion that we can separate feeling from
thinking and doing. Every thought and every act has in it something of
all three elements. An emotion is not an isolated phenomenon; it is
bound up on the one hand with ideas and on the other with bodily
states and conduct. Whoever runs amuck in his emotions runs amuck in
his whole being. The nervous invalid with his exhausted and sensitive
body, his upset mind and irrational conduct is a living illustration
of the central place of the emotions in the realm of the personality.
But it is not the nervous person only who needs a better understanding
of his emotional life. The well man also gets angry for childish
reasons; he is prejudiced and envious, unhappy and suspicious for the
very same reason as is the nervous man. Since the working-capital of
energy is limited to a definite amount, the control of the emotions
becomes a central problem in any life,--a deciding factor in the
output and the outcome, as well as in comfort and happiness by the
way.
Nothing is harder for the average man to believe than this fact that
he really has the power to choose his emotions. He has been
dissatisfied with himself in his past reactions, and yet he has not
known how to change them. His anger or his depression has appeared so
undesirable to his best judgment and to his conscious reason that it
has seemed to be not a part of himself at all but an invasion from
without which has swept over him without his consent and quite beyond
control.
A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF
Most of the confusion comes from the fact that we know only a part of
ourselves. What we do not consciously enjoy we believe we do not enjoy
at all. What we do not consciously choose we believe to be beyond our
power of choice,--the work of the evil one, or the natural depravity
of human nature, perhaps; but certainly not anything of our choosing.
The point is that a human being is so constituted that he can, without
knowing it, entertain at the same time two diametrically opposite
desires. The average person is not so unified as he believes, but is,
in fact, "a house divided against itself."
The words of the apostle Paul express for most of us the truth about
ourselves: "For what I would, that I do not; but what I hate that I
do." What Paul calls the law of his members warring against the law of
his mind is simply what we call to-day the instinctive desires coming
into conflict with our conscious ideal.
=Hidden Desires.= Although we choose our emotions, we choose in many
cases in response to a buried part of ourselves of which we are wholly
unaware, or only half-aware. When we do not like what we have chosen,
it is because the conscious part of us is out of harmony with another
part and that part is doing the choosing. If the emotions which we
choose are not those that the whole of us--or at least the
conscious--would desire, it is because we are choosing in response to
hidden desires, and giving satisfaction to cravings which we have not
recognized. Repeated indulgence of such desires is responsible for the
emotional habits which we are too likely to consider an inevitable
part of our personality, inherited from ancestors who are not on hand
to defend themselves. When we form the habit of being afraid of things
that other people do not fear, or of being irritated or depressed, or
of giving way to fits of temper, it is because these habit-reactions
satisfy the inner cravings that in the circumstances can get
satisfaction in no better way.
These hidden desires are of several different kinds, when squarely
looked at. Some of the cravings are found to be childish, and so out
of keeping with our real characters that we could not possibly hold on
to them as conscious desires. Others turn out to be so natural and so
inevitable that we wonder how we could ever have imagined that they
ought to be repressed. Still others, legitimate in themselves, but
denied because of outer circumstances, are found to be easily
satisfied in indirect ways which bear no resemblance to their old
unfortunate forms of outlet.
WHEN KNOWLEDGE HELPS
The way to get rid of an undesirable emotion is not by working at the
emotion itself, but by realizing that this is merely an offshoot of a
deeper root, hidden below the surface. The great point is to recognize
this deeper root.
=Childish Anger.= It helps to know that uncalled-for anger is a
defense reaction--a sort of camouflage or smoke cloud which we throw
out to hide from ourselves and others the fact that we are being
worsted in an argument, or being shown up in an undesirable light.
Better than any amount of weeping over a hot temper is an
understanding of the fact that when we fly into unseemly rage we are
usually giving indulgence to a childhood desire to run away from
unpleasant facts and to cover up our own faults.
=Enjoying the Blues.= It helps to know that the easiest way to fight
the blues is by realizing that they are a deliberate, if unconscious,
attempt to gain the pity of ourselves and others. There seems to be in
undeveloped human nature something that really enjoys being pitied,
and if we cannot get the commiseration of other people, we can,
without much trouble, work up a case of self-pity. Most of us would
have to acknowledge that we seldom find tears in our eyes except when
our own woes are under consideration. "Whatever else the blues
accomplish, they certainly afford us a chance to submerge ourselves
in a sea of self-engrossment."[63]
[Footnote 63: Putnam: _Human Motives_.]
=The Chip on the Shoulder.= It helps to know that irritability and
over-sensitiveness are usually the result of tension from unsatisfied
desires which must find some kind of outlet. If a person is secretly
restive under the fact that he cannot have the kind of clothes he
wants, cannot shine in society, or secure a college education or a
large fortune,--all of which minister to our insistent and rarely
satisfied instinct of self-assertion,--or if he is secretly yearning
for the satisfaction of the marriage relation, or for the sense of
completion in parenthood; then the tension from these unsatisfied
desires shows itself in a hundred little everyday instances of lack of
self-control. These mystify him and his friends, but they are
understandable when the whole truth is known.
=Anxiety and Fear.= Nowhere is understanding more valuable than when
we approach the subject of anxiety and fear. Whenever a person falls
into a state of abnormal fear, his friends and his physician spend a
good deal of time in attempting to prove to him that there is no cause
for apprehension, and in exhorting him to use his reason and give up
his fear. But how can a person help himself when he is fighting in the
dark? How can he free himself when the thing he thinks he fears is
merely a symbol of what he really fears? The woman who was afraid she
would choke her child had been several months in the hands of
Christian Scientists, and had earnestly tried to replace fear with
courage. But in the circumstances, and without further knowledge, this
was as impossible as it is for a man to lift himself by his own
boot-straps. She had no point of contact with her real fear, as the
man has no leverage contact with the earth from which he wishes to
lift himself.
To be sure there are many cases in which an assumed cheerfulness and
courage do have a mighty effect on the inner man. The forces of the
personality are not set, but plastic, and are constantly acting and
interacting upon one another. Surface habits do influence the forces
below the surface. William James's advice, "Square your shoulders,
speak in a major key, smile, and turn a compliment," is good for most
occasions, but sometimes even a little understanding of the cause is
far more effective.
It helps to know that persistent anxiety, lacking obvious cause, is
found to be the anxiety of the thwarted instinct of reproduction. When
the sex-instinct is repeatedly stimulated and then checked it sets in
motion some of the same glands that are activated in fear. What comes
up into consciousness is therefore very naturally a fear or dread of
impending disaster, very like the poignant anxiety that one feels
when stepping up in the dark to a step that is not there.
Simultaneous with the fear lest these repressed desires should not be
satisfied, there is an intense fear lest they should. The more
insistent the repressed desire, and the more it seems likely to break
through into consciousness, the keener the anguish of the ethical
impulses. Abnormal fear, however it may seem to be externalized,
always implies at the bottom a fear of something within. There is no
truth which is harder to believe on first hearing but which grows more
compelling with further knowledge, than this truth that an exaggerated
fear always implies a desire which somehow offends the total
personality. When we observe the various distressing phobias, such as
the common fear of contamination, a woman's fear to undress at night,
a fear that the gas was not turned off, or that one's clothing is out
of order; fear lest the exact truth has not been told, or that the
uttermost farthing of one's obligations has not been met,--then we may
know that there is something in the fear situation which either
directly or symbolically refers to some hidden desire; a desire which
the individual would not for the world acknowledge to himself, but
which is too keen to be altogether repressed.
The close connection between fear and desire is often shown in the
unfounded fear of having committed a crime. Both doctors and lawyers
in their professional work occasionally come upon individuals who
believe that they have committed some heinous crime of which they are
really innocent, and who insist upon their guilt despite all evidence
to the contrary. A quiet, gentle youth who at the age of twenty was
under my medical care, is still not sure in his own whether he, at
twelve years of age, was the burglar who broke into the village store
and killed the owner. It is difficult for the normally self-satisfied
individual to understand the appeal of heroics to a person whose
starved instinct of self-assertion makes him choose to be known as a
villain rather than not to be known at all.
=Breaking the Spell.= When once we bring up into consciousness these
hidden desires that manifest themselves in such troublesome ways, we
find that we have robbed them of much of their power over our lives.
Sometimes, it is true, a detailed and thorough exploration by
psycho-analysis is necessary, but in many cases it is sufficient just
to know that there are underlying causes. To know these things is far
from excusing ourselves because of them. Even though emotions are
determined by forces that are deep in the subconscious, we may still
choose in opposition to those forces, if we but know that we can do
so. The fact that some of the roots of our bad habits reach down into
the subconscious is no excuse for not digging them up. As Dr. Putnam
says, "It is the whole of us that acts, and we are as responsible for
the supervision of the unseen as for the obvious factors that are at
work. The moon may be only half illumined and half visible, but the
invisible half goes on, none the less, exerting its full share of
influence on the motion of the tides and earth."[64]
[Footnote 64: Putnam: _Freud's Psychoanalytic Method and Its
Evolution_, p. 34.]
THE HIGHEST KIND OF CHOICE
There is no easier way to enliven any conversation than by dropping
the remark that a human being always does what he wants to do. Simple
as the statement seems, it is quite enough to quicken the dullest
table-talk and loosen the most reticent tongue.
"I don't do what I want to do," says the college student. "I want to
play tennis every afternoon; but what I do is to sit in a stuffy room
and study."
"I don't do what I want to do," says the mother of a family. "At night
I want to sit down and read the latest magazine, but what I do is to
darn stockings by the hour."
Nevertheless we shall see that, even in cases like these, each of us
is acting in accordance with his strongest desire. There may be--there
often is--a bitter conflict, but in the end the desire that is really
stronger always conquers and works itself out into action.
It is possible to imagine a situation in which a man would be
physically unable to do what he wanted to do. Bound by physical cords,
held by prison walls, or weakened by illness, he might be actually
unable to carry out his desires. But apart from physical restraint, it
is hard to imagine a situation in real life in which a person does not
actually do what he wants to do; that is, what _in the circumstances
he wants to do_. This is simply saying in another way that we act in
accordance with the emotion which is at the moment strongest.
=Will Is Choice.= Just here we can imagine an earnest protest: "But
why do you ignore the human will? Why do you try to make man the
creature of feeling? A high-grade man does--not what he wants to do
but what he thinks he ought to do. In any person worthy of the
adjective 'civilized' it is conscience, not desire, which is the
motive power of his life."
It is true: in the better kind of man the will is of central
importance; but what is "will"? Let us imagine a raw soldier in the
trenches just before a charge into No-Man's Land. He is afraid, but
the word of command comes, and instantly he is a new creature. His
fear drops away and, energized by the lust of battle, he rushes
forward, obviously driven by the stronger emotion. He goes ahead
because he really wants to, and we say that he does not have to use
his will.
Imagine another soldier in the same situation; with him fear seems
uppermost. His knees shake and his legs want to carry him in the wrong
direction, but he still goes forward. And he goes forward, not so much
because there is no other possibility as because, in the
circumstances, he really wants to. All his life, and especially during
his military training, he has been filled with ideals of loyalty and
courage. More than he fears the guns of the enemy or of his
firing-squad does he fear the loss of his own self-respect and the
respect of his comrades. Greater than his "will to live" is his desire
to play the man. There is conflict, and the desire which seems at the
moment weaker is given the victory because it is reinforced by that
other permanent desire to be a worthy man, brave, and dependable in a
crisis. He goes forward, because in the circumstances, he really wants
to, but in this case we say that he had to use his will.
Is it not apparent that will itself is choice,--the selection by the
whole personality of the emotion and the action which best fit into
its ideals? Will is choice by the part of us which has ideals.
McDougall points out that will is the reinforcement of the weaker
desire by the master desire to be a certain kind of a character.[65]
[Footnote 65: "The essential mark of volition is that the personality
as a whole, or the central feature or nucleus of the personality, the
man himself, is thrown upon the side of the weaker
motive."--McDougall: _Introduction to Social Psychology_, p. 240.]
Each human being as he goes through life acquires a number of moral
ideals and sentiments which he adopts as his own. They become linked
with the instinct of self-assertion, which henceforth acts as the
motive power behind them, and attempts to drive from the field any
emotion which happens to conflict.
Men, like the lower animals, are ruled by desire, but, as G.A. Coe
says, "Men mold themselves. They form desires not merely to have this
or that object, but to be this or that kind of a man."[66]
[Footnote 66: Coe: _Psychology of Religion_.]
If a man be worthy of the name, he is not swayed by the emotion which
happens for the moment to be strongest. He has the power to reinforce
and make dominant those impulses which fit into the ideal he has built
for himself. In other words, he has the power to choose between his
desires, and this power depends largely upon the ideals which he has
incorporated into his life by the complexes and sentiments which
compose his personality.
_Ideas and Ideals_. If emotion is the heart of humanity, ideas are its
head. In our emphasis on emotion, we must not forget that as emotion
controls action, so ideas control emotion. But ideas, of themselves,
are not enough. Everybody has seen weaklings who were full of pious
platitudes. Ideas do control life, but only when linked up with some
strong emotion. No moral sentiment is strong enough to withstand an
intense instinctive desire. If ideas are to be dynamic factors in a
life, they must become ideals and be really desired. They must be
backed up by the impulse of self-assertion, incorporated with the
sentiment of self-regard, and so made a permanent part of the central
personality.
Parents and teachers who try to "break a child's will" and to punish
every evidence of independence and self-assertion little know that
they are undermining the foundations of morality itself, and doing
their utmost to leave the child at the mercy of his chance whims and
emotions. There can be no strength of character without self-regard,
and self-regard is built on the instinctive desire of self-assertion.
=Education and Religion.= It is easy to see how important education is
in this process of giving the right content to the self-regarding
sentiment. The child trained to regard "temper" as a disgrace,
self-pity as a vice, over-sensitiveness as a sign of selfishness, and
all forms of exaggerated emotionalism as a token of weakness, has
acquired a powerful weapon against temptation in later life.
Indulgence in any of these forms of gratification he will regard as
unworthy and out of keeping with his personality.
It is easy, too, to see how central a place a vital religious faith
has in enriching and ennobling the ego-ideal, and in giving it
driving-power. A force which makes a high ideal seem both imperative
and possible of achievement could hardly fail to be a deciding factor.
Every student of human nature knows in how many countless lives the
Christian religion has made all the difference between mere good
intentions and the power to realize those intentions; how many times
it has furnished the motive power which nothing else seemed able to
supply. Moral sentiments which have been merely sentiments become,
through the magic of a new faith, incorporated into conscience and
endowed with new power.
Just here lies the value of any great love, or any intense devotion to
a cause. As Royce says: "To have a conscience, then, is to have a
cause; to unify your life by means of an ideal determined by this
cause, and to compare this ideal and the life."[67]
[Footnote 67: Royce: _Philosophy of Loyalty_, p. 175.]
=Avoiding the Strain.= It seems that a human being is to a large
extent controlled by will, and that will is in itself the highest kind
of choice. But too often will is crippled because it does not speak
for the whole personality. Knowledge helps a person to relate
conscience with hitherto hidden parts of himself, to assert his will,
and to choose only those emotions and outlets which the connected-up,
the unified personality wants. Sometimes, indeed, a little knowledge
makes the exercise of the will power unnecessary. Using will power
is, after all, likely to be a strenuous business. It implies the
presence of conflict, and the strain of defeating the desire which has
to be denied.[68] Why struggle to subdue emotional bad habits when a
little insight dispels the desire back of them, and makes them melt
away as if by magic? For example, why use our will to keep down fear
or anger when a little understanding dissipates these emotions without
effort?
[Footnote 68: Freud: _Introduction to Psychoanalysis_, p. 42.]
Whatever we do with difficulty we are not doing well. When it requires
effort to do our duty this means that a great part of us does not want
to do it. When we get rid of our hidden resistances we work with ease.
As a strong wind, applied in the right way, drives the ship without
effort, just so the forces in our lives, if they are adjusted to one
another, will without strain or stress easily and naturally work
together to carry us in the direction we have chosen. When we get rid
of blind conflicts, even the business of ruling our spirits becomes
feasible.
SUMMARY
=Various "Sprees."= The human animal has a constitutional dislike for
dullness and will seize upon almost any device which promises to lift
him out of what he considers the monotony of daily grind. An elaborate
essay might be written on the means which human beings have taken to
create the sense of _aliveness_ which they so much crave. Some of
them--we call them savages--have found satisfactory certain wild
orgies in primitive war-dances; others--we shall soon call them "out
of date"--have found simpler a bottle of whisky or a glass of
champagne; still others find a cold shower more invigorating, or a
brisk walk or a good stiff job which sets them aglow with the sense of
accomplishment. But there are always those who, for one reason or
another, find most satisfactory of all a chronic emotional tippling,
or a good old-fashioned emotional spree. Persons who would be shocked
at the idea of whisky or champagne allow themselves this other kind of
indulgence without in the least knowing why.
Nor is the connection between alcoholism and emotionalism so
far-fetched as it seems. Psycho-analytic investigations have
repeatedly revealed the fact that both are indulged in because they
remove inhibitions, give vent to repressed desires, and bring a sense
of life and power which has somehow been lost in the normal living.
Both kinds of spree are followed by the inevitable "morning after"
with its proverbial headache, remorse, and vows of repentance but
despite all this, both are clung to because the satisfaction they
bring is too deep to be easily relinquished.
Whenever an emotion quite out of keeping with conscious desire is
allowed to become habitual, we may know that it is being chosen by a
part of the personality which needs to be uncovered and squarely
faced. Nervous symptoms and exaggerated emotionalism are alike
evidence of the fact that the wrong part of us is doing the choosing
and that the will needs to be enlightened on what is taking place in
the outer edge of its domain. In the choice between emotionalism and
equanimity, the selection of the former can only be in response to
unrecognized desire.
A nervous person is invariably an emotional person, and as a rule lays
the blame for his condition upon past experiences. But experience is
what happens to us _plus_ the way we take it. We cannot always ward
off the blow, but we can decide upon our reaction. "Even if the
conduct of others has been the cause of our emotion, it is really we
ourselves who have created it by the way in which we have
reacted."[69]
[Footnote 69: DuBois: _Psychic Treatment of Nervous Disorders_, p.
155.]
One ship drives east, another drives west,
While the self-same breezes blow;
'Tis the set of the sail, and not the gale
That bids them where to go.
Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate,
As we journey along through life;
'Tis the set of the soul that decides the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
REBECCA R. WILLIAMS.