Menticulture; or, the A-B-C of True LivingFletcher, Horace
Religion
Menticulture; or, the A-B-C of True Living
Fletcher, Horace
Anger; Conduct of life; Worry
It is not necessary to engage in battle the small army of lesser
passions if you concentrate your efforts against anger and worry, for
they are all children of these parents. Oppose them with a bold front;
make one heroic stand against them and they and all of their children
will fly. Disown them once and the ability to re-adopt them will have
disappeared with them.
[Sidenote: Worry Causes Dissipation]
Anger and worry, especially worry, are the cause of most of the
drunkenness and other dissipations which are the curses of the age.
Excuse for them or temptation to them is found in the desire to smother
the depression which they themselves cause.
Anger and worry are creations of the mind, and can be dispelled by the
same power that gave them birth.
[Sidenote: Anger and Worry are Phantoms]
Anger and worry are caused by phantoms that we create within ourselves
and whose only strength is that with which we endow them.
Anger and worry are like echoes; they do not exist until we call for
them, and the louder we call, the louder is their response. We can
never drown them; yet, if let alone, they drown themselves.
Fear is possibly the truer name for the cowardly root-passion than
worry; but as they are synonymous, and as anger and worry are more
frequently used together, and worry has a less formidable sound, I have
chosen to present it for attack under that title.
While the evil passions align themselves into two classes, as the
offshoots of Anger and Worry; they are, in fact, all growths from one
root. Worry (or fear) is the male principle, as it were, without which,
all the others wither and die. For instance; if we do not worry, we do
not fear; and if we do not fear aggression, or insult, or slight, we do
not become angry. We quarrel most frequently with what _we fear_ is
thought or intended by our adversary, and least frequently with what he
actually does or thinks. On the other hand our adversary endows us with
intentions which he himself creates, and each puts his own fuel on the
fire, to increase the heat of the controversy.
In Emancipation there is no fear, (or worry) and consequently no fuel
for discord.
[Sidenote: Emancipation Disarms]
Emancipation is a disarmament which disarms others, but adds strength
to itself.
To the Emancipated every moment is a delight, or a moment of calm,
during which he is susceptible only to good impressions, and the best
interpretation of everything, no matter what the external conditions.
Even in cases of sickness, the tendency of the emancipated mind is so
inclined to gratitude for the limitations of the calamity, that it has
little if any room left for regret. Its thankful appreciation of a half
loaf of blessings, leaves no place for disappointment that it is not a
whole one, and it certainly has no desire to question the wisdom of the
process of evolution to which it is related.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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