<SPAN name="VII"></SPAN>
<h2>VII</h2>
<h2>WHAT 'LIVING' CHIEFLY IS</h2>
<br/>
<p>It is in intercourse—social, sentimental,
or business—with one's fellows that the
qualities and the condition of the human
machine are put to the test and strained.
That part of my life which I conduct by
myself, without reference—or at any rate
without direct reference—to others, I can
usually manage in such a way that the
gods do not positively weep at the spectacle
thereof. My environment is simpler,
less puzzling, when I am alone, my calm
and my self-control less liable to violent
fluctuations. Impossible to be disturbed
by a chair! Impossible that a chair
should get on one's nerves! Impossible
to blame a chair for not being as reasonable,
as archangelic as I am myself! But
when it comes to people!... Well, that
is 'living,' then! The art of life, the art
of extracting all its power from the human
machine, does not lie chiefly in processes
of bookish-culture, nor in contemplations
of the beauty and majesty of existence.
It lies chiefly in keeping the peace, the
whole peace, and nothing but the peace,
with those with whom one is 'thrown.'
Is it in sitting ecstatic over Shelley,
Shakespeare, or Herbert Spencer, solitary
in my room of a night, that I am 'improving
myself' and learning to live? Or is
it in watching over all my daily human
contacts? Do not seek to escape the
comparison by insinuating that I despise
study, or by pointing out that the eternal
verities are beyond dailiness. Nothing of
the kind! I am so 'silly' about books
that merely to possess them gives me
pleasure. And if the verities are good
for eternity they ought to be good for
a day. If I cannot exchange them for
daily coin—if I can't buy happiness for a
single day because I've nothing less than
an eternal verity about me and nobody
has sufficient change—then my eternal
verity is not an eternal verity. It is
merely an unnegotiable bit of glass (called
a diamond), or even a note on the Bank of
Engraving.</p>
<p>I can say to myself when I arise in the
morning: 'I am master of my brain.
No one can get in there and rage about
like a bull in a china shop. If my companions
on the planet's crust choose to
rage about they cannot affect <i>me</i>! I will
not let them. I have power to maintain
my own calm, and I will. No earthly
being can force me to be false to my
principles, or to be blind to the beauty of
the universe, or to be gloomy, or to be
irritable, or to complain against my lot.
For these things depend on the brain;
cheerfulness, kindliness, and honest thinking
are all within the department of the
brain. The disciplined brain can accomplish
them. And my brain is disciplined,
and I will discipline it more and more
as the days pass. I am, therefore, independent
of hazard, and I will back
myself to conduct all intercourse as
becomes a rational creature.' ... I can
say this. I can ram this argument by
force of will into my brain, and by dint of
repeating it often enough I shall assuredly
arrive at the supreme virtues of reason.
I should assuredly conquer—the brain
being such a machine of habit—even if I
did not take the trouble to consider in the
slightest degree what manner of things
my fellow-men are—by acting merely
in my own interests. But the way of
perfection (I speak relatively) will be
immensely shortened and smoothed if I
do consider, dispassionately, the case of
the other human machines. Thus:—</p>
<p>The truth is that my attitude towards
my fellows is fundamentally and totally
wrong, and that it entails on my thinking
machine a strain which is quite unnecessary,
though I may have arranged
the machine so as to withstand the strain
successfully. The secret of smooth living
is a calm cheerfulness which will leave
me always in full possession of my reasoning
faculty—in order that I may live
by reason instead of by instinct and
momentary passion. The secret of calm
cheerfulness is kindliness; no person can
be consistently cheerful and calm who
does not consistently think kind thoughts.
But how can I be kindly when I pass the
major portion of my time in blaming the
people who surround me—who are part
of my environment? If I, blaming,
achieve some approach to kindliness, it
is only by a great and exhausting effort
of self-mastery. The inmost secret, then,
lies in not blaming, in not judging and
emitting verdicts. Oh! I do not blame
by word of mouth! I am far too
advanced for such a puerility. I keep the
blame in my own breast, where it festers.
I am always privately forgiving, which is
bad for me. Because, you know, there
is nothing to forgive. I do not have to
forgive bad weather; nor, if I found
myself in an earthquake, should I have
to forgive the earthquake.</p>
<p>All blame, uttered or unexpressed, is
wrong. I do not blame myself. I can
explain myself to myself. I can invariably
explain myself. If I forged a friend's
name on a cheque I should explain the
affair quite satisfactorily to myself. And
instead of blaming myself I should sympathise
with myself for having been
driven into such an excessively awkward
corner. Let me examine honestly my
mental processes, and I must admit that
my attitude towards others is entirely
different from my attitude towards myself.
I must admit that in the seclusion of my
mind, though I say not a word, I am
constantly blaming others because I am
not happy. Whenever I bump up
against an opposing personality and my
smooth progress is impeded, I secretly
blame the opposer. I act as though I
had shouted to the world: 'Clear out of
the way, every one, for I am coming!'
Every one does not clear out of the way.
I did not really expect every one to clear
out of the way. But I act, within, as
though I had so expected. I blame.
Hence kindliness, hence cheerfulness, is
rendered vastly more difficult for me.</p>
<p>What I ought to do is this! I ought to
reflect again and again, and yet again,
that the beings among whom I have to
steer, the living environment out of which
I have to manufacture my happiness,
are just as inevitable in the scheme of
evolution as I am myself; have just as
much right to be themselves as I have to
be myself; are precisely my equals in
the face of Nature; are capable of being
explained as I am capable of being explained;
are entitled to the same latitude
as I am entitled to, and are no more
responsible for their composition and their
environment than I for mine. I ought to
reflect again and again, and yet again,
that they all deserve from me as much
sympathy as I give to myself. Why not?
Having thus reflected in a general manner,
I ought to take one by one the individuals
with whom I am brought into frequent
contact, and seek, by a deliberate effort
of the imagination and the reason, to
understand them, to understand why they
act thus and thus, what their difficulties
are, what their 'explanation' is, and how
friction can be avoided. So I ought to
reflect, morning after morning, until my
brain is saturated with the cases of these
individuals. Here is a course of discipline.
If I follow it I shall gradually lose the
preposterous habit of blaming, and I
shall have laid the foundations of that
quiet, unshakable self-possession which
is the indispensable preliminary of conduct
according to reason, of thorough efficiency
in the machine of happiness. But
something in me, something distinctly
base, says: 'Yes. The put-yourself-in-his-place
business over again! The do-unto-others
business over again!' Just so!
Something in me is ashamed of being
'moral.' (You all know the feeling!)
Well, morals are naught but another
name for reasonable conduct; a higher
and more practical form of egotism—an
egotism which, while freeing others, frees
myself. I have tried the lower form of
egotism. And it has failed. If I am
afraid of being moral, if I prefer to cut
off my nose to spite my face, well, I must
accept the consequences. But truth will
prevail.</p>
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