It is this which adapts us to different situations, different
groups, by calling into play organized modes of talking or
acting. We pass from a group of ladies in whose presence we have
been friendly but decorous, perhaps unconventionally formal, to a
group of business intimates, men of long acquaintance. Without
even being conscious of it we lounge around, feet on the table,
carelessly dropping cigarette ash to the floor, using language
chosen for force rather than elegance; we discuss sports, women,
business and a whole group of different emotions, habits and
purposes come to the surface, though we were not at all conscious
of having repressed them while in the presence of the ladies. A
faux pas is where the organizer has "slipped" on his job; lack of
tact implies in part a rigid organizing energy, neither plastic
nor versatile enough.
We are now ready to face certain developments of these three main
factors, viz., the response to stimuli; choice and inhibition,
and the organizing energy. Largely we might classify people
according to the type of vigor of their reactions to stimuli, the
quality and vigor of choice and of inhibition, and the quality
and vigor of the organizing energy. We note that there are people
who have, as it were, exquisitely sensitive feelers for the
stimuli of one kind or another and who react vigorously, perhaps
excessively; that there are others of a duller, less reactive
nature, largely because they are stimuli-proof. Others are
under-inhibited, follow desire or outer stimulus without heed,
without a brake; others are over-inhibited, too cautious, too
full of doubt, unable to choose the reaction that seems
appropriate. The organizing energy of some is low; they never
seem to unify their experiences into a code of life and living;
they are like a string of beads loosely strung together with
disharmonious emotions, desires, purposes. In others this energy
is high, they chew the cud of every experience and (to change the
metaphor) they weld life's happenings, their memories, their
emotions and purposes into a more unified ego, a real I,
harmonious, self-enlightened; clearly conscious of aim and end
and striving bravely towards it. Or there is over-unification and
fanaticism, with narrow aim and little sympathy for other aims.
Sketched in this very broad way we see masses of people, rather
than individuals, and we are not finely adjusted to our subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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