Part 4

This dream runs through the souls of all girls. It yearly furnishes the art dragon with thousands and thousands of victims. The happy parents believe it is the voice of talent crying imperatively to be heard. In reality it is only the beginning of a harassing struggle to get into the lime-light, a struggle that all women wage with in exhaustible patience as long as they live. And thus numberless amateur female dilettanti vainly contend for the laurel because they are so presumptuous as to try to transform a childish dream into a waking reality.

It is even more interesting to make a survey of what girls just past puberty do not wish to become. Not one wants to marry. (Reasons can always be found.) Not one wants to be an ordinary merchant’s wife. And life then takes delight in bringing that to pass which seemingly they did not wish....

In boys the matter is more complicated. The sex-urge is not manifested so clearly in them as in girls. It requires great skill in the understanding of human conduct to discover in the games that boys play the symbolic connection with the natural impulses. It is remarkable that boys’ earliest ideals are employments that are in some way or other related to locomotion. All little boys first want to be drivers, conductors, chauffeurs, and the like. Motion seems to fascinate the boy and to give him more pleasure than anything else. A ride in a street car or a bus which seems to us elders so obviously wearisome is such a wonderful thing for a child. Just look at the solemn faces of the little boys as they sit astride the brave wooden steed in the carousal! “Sonny, don’t you like it? Why aren’t you laughing?” exclaims the astonished mother.

A child is still at that stage of development when motion seems something wonderful. Is it possible that in this a secret (unconscious) sex-motive, such as is often felt by one when being rocked or swung in a swinging boat, does not play a part? Many adults admit this well-known effect of riding. This is in all probability one of the most potent and most hidden roots of the passion for travelling. Freud very frankly asserts in his “Contributions to a sexual theory” that rhythmical motion gives rise to pleasurable sensations in children. “The jolting in a travelling wagon and subsequently in a railway train has such a fascination for older children that all children, at least all boys, sometimes in their life want to be conductors and drivers. They show a curious interest in everything connected with trains and make these the nucleus of an exquisite system of sexual symbolism.”

Be this as it may. The fact is that all the little ones want to become drivers of some vehicle, that they can play driver, rider, chauffeur, car, train, etc., for hours at a time, that in the first years of their lives their fantasies are fixed only on objects possessing the power of motion, beginning with the baby-carriage and ending with the aeroplane.

This stage lasts a variable period in different children. In some cases up to puberty and some even beyond this. I know boys who have almost attained to manhood who are still inordinately interested in automobiles and railways. In these cases we are dealing with a fixation of an infantile wish which will exercise a decisive influence on the individual’s whole life. In most cases the first ideal loses its glamour before the magic of a uniform. The first uniform that a child sees daily is that of the “letter-carrier.” In his favour, too, is the fact that he is always on the go, going from house to house. The “policeman” too, promenading up and down in his uniform, engages the child’s fantasy. So too the dashing “fireman.” Needless to say all these are very soon displaced and wholly forgotten in favour of the “soldier.”

The love to be a soldier has its origin in many sources. Almost all boys pass through a period when they want to be soldiers. The wish to be a soldier is a compromise for various suppressed wishes. A soldier has been known to become a general and even a king. That fact is narrated in fairy tales, chronicled in sagas and recorded in history. One can manifest one’s patriotism. Then there is the beautiful coloured uniform that the girls so love--and one is always going somewhere. For one is never just an ordinary soldier but a bold, dashing trooper, and--this above all!--one has a big powerful sword. Under the influence of these childish desires children plead to go to the military schools and the parents give their consent in the belief that it is the children’s natural bent that speaks. Why, I tried to take this step when I was fifteen years old but--heaven be praised for it--was found physically unfit. My more fortunate friends who were accepted have for the most part subsequently discovered that they had erred in their youth.

The same thing happens with respect to the other wishes of children, whether they become engineers, teachers, physicians, or ministers. The voice of the heart is deceptive and rarely betrays the individual’s true gift. The biographies of great men may now and then give indications of talent manifested in childhood. But the contrary is also easily to be found. Very often hidden desires are concealed or masked behind one’s choice of a calling. I know a man who became a physician because he longed to go far away, to go to the metropolis. In youth he had to be driven to practice his music--and yet music was his great talent and he should have become a musician.

What our children want to become ... seldom denotes that they have a natural aptitude for a particular calling. They are to be regarded only as distorted symbols behind which the almost utterly insoluble puzzles of the childhood soul are concealed. When we are mature enough to know what we really want to become it is usually too late. Then we are children no longer. But then we would love to be children again and shed a furtive tear for the beautiful childhood that’s dead.... If we could be children again we’d know what we would like to be. No illusory wish would then tempt us from the right path, luring us like a will o’ the wisp into the morass of destruction.

And this wish too is fulfilled. We become children again if we live long enough. But then, alas! our wishes have ceased to bloom. Over the stubble-field of withered hopes we totter to our inevitable destiny. Everything seems futile, for all paths lead to one goal. Then we know what children would like to become, what they must become.

INDEPENDENCE

A pale, dark-complexioned young man, elegantly attired, sits before me. His hair is neatly parted on the side and boldly thrown back over his forehead; he is clearly half snob and half artist; in short, one of that remarkable type of young man that is so common in a modern metropolis. His complaints are the customary complaints of the modern neurotic. He is tired and weak, incapable of prolonged mental application. He is a clerk in an office, and has already lost one position because of his inability to use his brains any longer. With some difficulty his father had secured a position for him in a bank where a bright future seems to await him but where a dull present bears him down. All day it’s nothing but figures, figures, figures. He cannot endure that. His patience is almost exhausted; the figures swim before his eyes, and he makes more mistakes than is tolerable in an official of a bank. He begs me for a certificate that will officially vouch for his unendurable condition and make it possible for him to resign from his office in an honourable way before he is discharged for incompetence.

“Yes, and what will you do then? Have you another position in prospect?”

“Certainly,” he replied, with a certain alacrity which was in striking contrast with his careless melancholy. “I want to make myself independent. I am not fitted for office work, and I can’t bear to be bossed around and instructed by every Tom, Dick, or Harry who happens to have been on the job a few years longer than I.”

“Ah! now I understand your inability to figure. You are living in a state of permanent psychic conflict. Because you have no desire to work you cannot work. But what kind of business do you wish to go into? What have you learned?”

“Learned? To tell the truth, only what one learns in a trade school. I don’t want to go into business. I only want the certificate to show my father that my health will not permit me to work in an office. Do you think it’s good for anybody to work from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., with only one hour for luncheon?”

“That would be only eight hours work a day! I assure you that there are thousands who would be happy to work only so little. Shall you work less when you are independent?”

“Certainly. Then I won’t have to work at all.”

“So!” I replied in amazement. “I am curious to know what sort of business that is where one doesn’t have to work. What do you intend to do when your father gives you money?”

A blissful smile passed over the interesting youth’s face like a beam of celestial light. “I know all about sports. I’m going to play the races!”

I must admit I was considerably taken aback. I know how reluctant to work many a modern man is whose whole energy is expended in dreams. But that a sensible man should think of such a thing was new to me. Such a peculiar motivation for the purpose of becoming independent. The matter kept running through my head a long time. I soon noticed that this youth was only an extreme type of a very common species--a species that expresses itself in a passion for independence. When we investigate the deeper causes of this passion we invariably find the desire to secure for oneself the utmost amount of pleasure from a very small investment. But independence is only apparently the coveted ideal; behind it lies not only the desire for freedom, not only the proud feeling of self-reliance. No, in many cases the kernel of the matter is--laziness.

Independence! Proud, brazen word! How many sacrifices hast thou not demanded and dost still demand daily! Who is ignorant of these little daily tragedies of which no newspaper makes mention! The salesman who, after he had for years enjoyed a care-free and assured position, has fallen a victim to the craving for independence, and has to contend with cares and worries so long that at last, broken down and battered, he renounces his beautiful dream and willingly submits his once proud neck to the yoke; the writer who starts his own newspaper and sees his hard-saved gold flow away in beautifully printed sheets; the actor who becomes the director of his own company; the merchant who builds his own factory,--an endless procession of men who wished to make themselves independent.

It would be one-sided not to admit that in addition to the aforementioned element of wanting to make one’s work easier there is also a certain ambition to get ahead of one’s neighbours. Modern man is linked to life by a thousand bonds. He is only a little screw in a vast machine--a screw that has little or no influence on the working efficacy of the complicated apparatus, that can be lightly thrown aside or replaced. We all feel the burden of modern life, and instinctively we all fret under it and work against it. We long to sever the link that ties us to commonplace day and to become the lever that sets the machinery in motion.

Stupid beginning! Hopeless and thankless! Who can be independent and absolute nowadays? Is there any calling that can boast of standing outside life? It is a delusive dream which beckons and betrays us. We change masters only. That’s very simple. But we are far from becoming independent thereby. We have a hundred masters instead of one. The employee who has made himself “independent” has lost his master but becomes the slave of innumerable new tyrants to whose wills he must bow: his customers. Therein he resembles the so-called free professions which are in reality not free. The physician is dependent upon the whims of his patients; the lawyer woos the favour of his clients; the writer groans under the knout of the cruelest of all tyrants: the public. And, strange to say, it is this last calling that appeals to most persons as the ideal of independence. It is almost a weekly occurrence to see some discontented youngster or an unhappy girl with a thick manuscript in his or her portfolio, begging to be recommended to some publisher and thus open a writer’s career to them. They want to become self reliant, independent. It is vain to point out to them that an author’s bread is not sweetened with the raisins of independence. Others who have never written a line suddenly make up their minds to become journalists. They think that the will to become a journalist is all that is needed to be so. Evidences of adequate preparation and qualification they find in the excellence of their school compositions. They do not suspect that the journalist’s independence is a myth that is credited only by those who have never smelled to journalism. That the journalist is the slave not only of the public but also of the hour. That not a minute of the day is his, and that he would gladly exchange his pen for any other, more massy tool, if such a thing were possible.

Dissatisfaction with one’s calling is also one of the factors that sets the feeling for independence in motion. Who is nowadays satisfied with his calling, or with himself?! This may be easily proved by referring to a striking phenomenon. In doing so we need not sing the praises of the “good old days.” But happiness in one’s work and contentment with one’s calling were certainly much more common than they are now. Otherwise it could never have come to pass that the father’s calling should be transmitted to the sons generation after generation. How is it with us to-day? The physician cries: My son may be anything but a physician. The public official: My son shall be more fortunate than I; under no circumstances shall he be a public official. The actor: Be what you will, my son, but not an artist; art is the bitterest bread. The merchant wants to make a lawyer of his son, the lawyer a merchant, etc.

We envy others because we are all dissatisfied with ourselves and unhappy. The great ideal that floats before our eyes is to become a clipper of coupons. Money alone guarantees the road to independence. But if we were to ask the rich about this we would hear some surprising things. I know a lady who possesses a vast fortune and who is the absolute slave of her money. I recommended her to take a trip for her health’s sake. She replied: “Do you think that I can go away for a week? You have no idea of all the work I have to do. Now it’s something with the bureau of taxes, now it’s engaging a new superintendent! Then there are the receptions! I am busy from morning till night.” When I advised her to hire a manager she laughed merrily: “I’d be in a fine fix if I did that! Then I would lose the only recompense I have: my independence!”

Wherever we look, the higher we go, the less of true independence do we find. What does the psychology of modern social feelings teach us? It shows us everywhere the same cry for independence which in the single individual we have described as the basic feeling of his social attitude. Norway wanted its independence and got it. Hungary stormily clamoured for independence. Ireland, Poland, Persia, India, Egypt, and numerous colonies are struggling for independence. In the structure of the State the urge for independence begets continual turmoil. Austria can sing a plaintive song as to this. The demand of certain states for autonomy is the outcome of the same motive.

Political tune--scurvy tune. However--wholly unintentionally our analysis brings us from the consideration of the individual to that of the group. That a modern state can never again attain that measure of independence that it once enjoyed is as clear to the political economist as to the sociologist. What we have said of the individual applies also to peoples.

Must we then conclude that there is no independence? Isn’t it possible then for man to elevate himself above his environment and take a loftier point of view?

There certainly is such a thing as independence. But we must draw a sharp line of distinction between two different kinds of independence. There is an inner and an outer independence. But it is only the inner independence that one can hope to attain wholly. It alone is capable of giving us that modicum of outward independence which may be laboriously wrested from life. A healthy philosophy of life that frees the spirit, makes renunciation easier and wishing harder, and a certain spiritual and bodily freedom from wanting for things,--these alone can give us that independence that the world affords. That is why the poorest of the poor is more independent than the richest of the rich.

We all know the beautiful story of the king whose physicians promised him health if he could wear the shirt of a happy man. Messengers searched every corner of the world but, alas! could not find a happy man, till finally they came upon a merry hermit in the thickest part of a dark forest who seemed to be perfectly happy. But he, the only happy man in the wide world, had no shirt!

We would have to divest ourselves of many shirts to become independent within. We wear and lug about with us numberless suits, wrappings, which cover up our true selves and apparently safeguard us, whereas in reality they drag us down to the base earth.

JEALOUSY

Has any one counted the victims of jealousy? Daily a revolver cracks somewhere or other because of jealousy; daily a knife finds entrance into a warm body; daily some unhappy ones, racked by jealousy and life-weary, sink into fathomless depths. What are all the hideous battles narrated by history when compared with the endless slaughters caused by this frightful passion! It enslaves man as no other passion does; degrades him, humiliates him, and makes him taste the hell of many other passions, such as envy, mistrust, revengefulness, fear, hate, anger, and poisons the meagre pleasure-cup that imparts a touch of sweetness to bitter life.

What is jealousy? Whence flow its tributaries? Is this the Danaidean gift to humanity? Is it the twin sister of love? Do we acquire it or is it born with us? It is surely worth while to consider every one of these questions and to attempt to determine the nature of this unholy passion.

To understand jealousy we must go far, very far back into the history of man’s origin. Yes, far beyond man, as far as the animal world! For certain animals, intelligent animals, show clearly evidences of jealousy. Pet dogs resent it if their masters pet another dog. They are even jealous if the master caresses human beings. There are dogs who begin to whine if their master plays with or fondles his children. Very much the same thing is told of cats. Who of us on reading Freiligrath’s gruesome ballad, “The Lion’s Bride,” has not felt the terror of the beast’s furious jealousy?

Our observation of animals has taught us one of the fundamental characteristics of jealousy. Animals know very definitely what is theirs. They have a fine perception for what is theirs. Most dogs snarl even at their masters if they attempt to take their food from them. Their jealousy is the mood in which they express their possession, the egoism of their share. They defend as their possession even the affection to which they think themselves solely entitled.

The emotional life of the young shows the same phenomenon. They too do not know the distinction between thine and mine. What they happen to have in their hands is theirs and will defend it with their weak powers and loud howls. Many psychologists, including Percy, Compayné, Sully, Anfosse, Schion, Ziegler, consider the child an unmitigated egoist. Even in its love it is out and out egoistic and therefore extremely jealous. Young children’s jealousy may attain an incredible degree of intensity. A little two-year-old girl cried incessantly if her mother took the baby brother in her arms. A little boy was so jealous of his younger sister that he used to pinch her leg at every opportunity; having been smartly punished for it on one occasion he spared the little girl thereafter, but became afflicted with a peculiar compulsion neurosis: he pinched the legs of adults. Such experiences are of profound significance. They give us a glimpse of the primitive times when man had no idea yet of altruism. The whole world was his as far as his power, his strength, went. Man’s jealousy developed out of this primary ego-feeling, out of his right to sole possession. Before man could be civilised this tremendous barrier had to be overcome. The first community, the first social beings, were the first stages of altruism and civilization.

From this period emanate the subterranean sources from which jealousy is fed. We have probably all become more or less altruistic. But always in conflict with ourselves, in conflict with the beast, in conflict with the savage within us. Even to this day the whole world belongs to each one of us. Our desires extend our property to infinity. What would we not own? What do we not desire? The wealth of the rich, the honour of the distinguished, the triumphs of the artist, to say nothing of his sexual triumphs. The less we can fulfil these desires the more do we cling to what we have, or, somewhat more accurately, could have had. For jealousy does not concern only what one actually possesses. Women may be jealous of men they do not love and do not even possess. They simply begrudge the other woman her conquest. Don Juans know this very well. The best way of conquering a woman is still the old, old way: to make love to her friend. In this case wounded vanity plays a part, of course. But what is vanity but the over-estimation of the Me, the striking emphasis laid on one’s own value? And thus we again come back to the root of all jealousy: the pleasure in one’s own possession, in one’s embellished egoism.

Jealousy need not always have a sexual motive. A woman may be jealous of her husband’s friend because he has been more successful than her husband. Her husband is her possession. He ought to be the foremost, he ought to have achieved the others’ successes, so that his fame should revert to her too. Pupils are jealous of one another even though not a trace of a sexual motive may be demonstrable. We may be jealous of another’s horses, dogs, furniture, virtues, honours, friendships, responsibilities, etc. Behind it there always is our brutal egoism, the desire for another’s possessions, or at least the fear of losing one’s own possession.