I remember one Puritanically bred young woman who fled from her restrictions and inhibitions and joined a "free love" colony in New York. After two years she left, them and came back to New England. Her statement of the situation she found herself; it summarizes all attempts at "freedom." "It wasn't freedom. You found yourself bound to your desires, a slave to every wish. It grew awfully tiresome and besides, it brought so many complications. Sometimes you loved where you weren't loved--and vice versa. Jealousy was there, oh, so much of it--and pleasure disappeared after a while. It wasn't conscience--I still believe that right and wrong are arbitrary matters --but I found myself envying people who had some guide, some belief, some restrictions in themselves! For it seemed to me they were more free than I."
The fact is, for most men and women inhibition is no artificial phenomenon, despite its burdensomeness. It is not only inevitable, it is desirable. A feeling of power appears when one resists; there is mental gain, character growth as a result. Life must be purposive else it is vain and futile, and the feeling of no achievement and failure is far more disastrous than a thousand inhibitions.
Though man battles and compromises with himself, he also battles and compromises with his fellows and circumstances. That is to say, he must continually adjust himself to the unforeseen, the obstacle, the favoring circumstance; the possible and impossible; the certain and uncertain. Adjustment to reality is what the neurologists call it, but they do not define reality, which indeed cannot be defined. It is not the same thing for any two persons. For some reality is success, for others it is virtue.
The scientist smiles at the reality of the love-sick girl, and she would think his reality a bad dream. The artist says, "Beauty is the reality"; the miser says, "Cash"; the sentimentalist answers, "None of this but Love"; and the philosopher, aloof from all these, defines reality as "Truth." And the skeptic asks, "What is Truth?" We gain nothing by saying a man must adjust himself to reality; we say something definite when we say he must adjust his wishes to his abilities, to the opposing wills, wisher, and abilities of others; to the needs of his family and his country; to disease, old age and death; to the flux of the river of life. In the quickness of adjustment we have a great character factor; in the farsightedness of adjustment (foreseeing, planning) we have another. Does a man take his difficulties with courage and good cheer does he make the "best of it" or is he plunged into doubt and indecision by obstacles or complications? Is he calm, cool, collected, well poised, in that he watches and works without too much emotion and maintains self-feeling against adversity? We say a man is self-reliant when he finds in himself resources against obstacles and does not call on his neighbors for help. We would do well to extend the term to the one whose fund of courage, hope, energy and resource springs largely from within himself; who resists the forces that reduce courage, hope and energy. A higher sort of man not only supplies himself with the energetic factors of character, but he inspires, as we say, others; he is a sort of bank of these qualities, with high reserves which he gives to others. Contrast him with those whose cry constantly is "Help, help." Charming they may be as ornaments, but they deplete the treasury of life for their associates and are only of value as they call out the altruism of others.
There is no formula for adjustment. Intelligence, insight into one's powers and capacities, caution, boldness, compromise, firmness, aggressiveness, tact,--these and a dozen other traits and qualities come into play. It is a favorite teaching of optimistic sentimentalists, "Will conquers everything--it is omnipotent." God's will is,--but no one else's. What happens when two will and pray for diametrically opposing results? "Then God is on the side of the heaviest battalions," said Napoleon.
Victory comes to the best prepared, the most intelligent, the least hampered and the luckiest. Outside of metaphysics and theology there is no abstract will; it is a part of purpose, intelligence and instinct and shares in their imperfections and limitations. To will the impossible is to taste failure, although it may be difficult to know what is impossible. Fight hard, be brave, keep your powder dry and have good friends is the best counsel for adjustment. But learn resignation and cultivate a sense of humor.
No inspiration in that? Well, I must leave inspiration to others who have an infallible formula. The best I can offer in adjustment is the old prayer, "Lord, make me love the chase and not the quarry! Lord, make me live up to my ideals!"
Out of the welter of conflicts into which the individual is plunged through his own nature and the nature of the life around him, out of the experience of the race and the teaching of its leaders come ideals. Good, Beauty, Justice,--these are good deeds, beautiful things, true and non-contradictory expressions, just acts raised to the divine and absolute, and therefore worshiped. And their opposite, arising from evil deeds, ugly and disgusting things, misleading experiences and suffering, become unified into various forms of Evil. Life becomes divided into two parts, Good and Evil, and personified (by the great majority) into God and the Devil. Man seeks the Good, hates Evil, esteems himself when he conforms to the ideal, loathes himself when he violates it. He cannot judge himself; he wishes to know the judgment of others and accepts or rejects that judgment.
We say man seeks pleasure, satisfaction, the Good. True. But it is important to know that essentially he seeks a higher self-valuation, seeks to establish his own dignity and worth and has his highest satisfaction when that valuation is reached through conformity with absolute standards.
