She Says My House is Dark; B. Woodson

This realization comes to some young men long before the twenty first birthday, and to some others long after that significant anni versary (and sometimes long, long afterward) . . . and to some it comes not at all. Now here you might say to yourself that this observation is an elementary one which belabors the obvious and elaborates upon Mr. Woodson is President of the American General Insurance Company, well known for his writings on freedom. 652 the self-evident. But possibly you will agree, on further reflection, that the point is obvious and self evident only to the person whose maturity and experience and ob servation have served to make it so. Perhaps it will be worth your while to look around you for a moment and contemplate the rela tionship of this precept to some of those men and women on whom your gaze falls. You will quickly see, I believe, more examples than one of the man who is mature by the calendar but is still an adoles cent emotionally and philosophi cally.

You will observe that such a man still feels deep within himself that he should be able to rely upon others to carry him and coach him, to teach him and help him, and, finally, even to perform for him . . . and by the sam.e reason1969 "SHE SAYS MY HOUSE IS DARK •.." 653 ing he feels entitled to place upon others the responsibility for his shortcomings and his failings. Observe this man closely, I urge you, for there is much to be learned from his immaturity of thought and viewpoint. He will tell you in his every ut terance that he has not yet ac cepted the responsibility for his own batting average. He will tell you that he has not yet recognized and conquered the natural human impulse of every man to place the blame for his failings and short comings outside himself. He will speak to you of advantages denied him, of promises by others long unfulfilled, of assistance due him but not delivered, of faults not in himself but in his stars.

He will account for his inade quate grasp of a subject he should have delved into long ago on the grounds that he was shortchanged in school, or by lack of schooling - forgetting that in the ten or twenty years since he last attended a class he has had ten or twenty years to study and learn had he been of a mind to do so. He will assure you with all con viction and utmost sincerity that he is not naturally inefficient or willfully indolent, but that his dis persal of effort results from mat ters quite outside his control. He will tell you that-he would have been on time for his appointment with you if he had not been de. layed by some third person or some unforeseeable event. (The most perceptive and dis cerning man I know remarked once in my hearing, "The man who is always late always has an ex cuse - always! - and, what is more, it is a good excuse, too; but he nevertheless continues to be al ways late.") This man of immaturity, what ever his vocation, will tell you that he would do better occupationally if only he had a better understand ing of his own company and its business, or of investments, or economics, or banking, or business law, or whatever, but that nobody has taught him - forgetting that it is his responsibility to learn, not someone else's obligation to teach, and that virtually every ..

thing he needs awaits him in pub lications to which he has ready ac cess either in his employer's place of business or at the public li brary. He will tell you that he, too, would close more and bigger sales, or turn out cleaner blueprints, or produce more units of work or fewer rej ects, or both - if only his manager or supervisor would work with him and coach him and help him "as much as he helps all the other fellows in the department." He will tell you, his countenance shining with honest certainty, that 654 THE FREEMAN November he works as diligently, as intelli gently, as imaginatively, as all those around him, but that the others get more lucky breaks than does he. . (I know a man who says - and believes himself implicitly, mind you! - that he is "the best bridge player" in his particular circle, but that he "can't hold cards" by which he means to contend that he has consistently drawn weaker hands than the others in the. game over a long period of years. And I give you my word that the man truly believes it!) The man who is still immature emotionally and philosophically tells you this truth about himself by his attempts to place the re sponsibility for his deficiencies upon circumstance, or fate, or other persons. He implies to you that he hasn't yet run up a good score because those others who are supposed to hit the ball for him haven't done well enough to give him the high batting average to which he would like to become ac customed. He hasn't yet faced squarely the elementary fact that only his own trips to the plate, and only the hits which he himself drives out and his bat, his eyes, his muscles, his cunning, will serve to build his batting average and his record of accomplishment across the years.

One sunny morning in the year 49 A.D., a Roman statesman and philosopher named Lucius An naeus Seneca sat himself down and wrote a letter to his friend Lucil ius. The communication he sent on its way that day has survived these nineteen hundred years be cause it tells so simply and so un forgettably the truth that all men, until they change themselves by intellectual maturity and strength of character, tend naturally to place the blame for their short comings outside themselves. Here is what he wrote: "You know of our old house keeper, our old servant, who has been in our home for years. Her sight has failed and now it is gone. I am telling you a strange but true story: She is not aware that she is blind, and constantly urges her keeper to take her out of doors because she says my house is dark. "What we laugh at in her, 1 pray you to believe, happens to everyone of us, for no one of us knows himself to be avaricious or covetous or vain.

"The blind at least call for a guide, while we go astray on our own accord. '1 am not ambitious,' we say, 'but in Rome one cannot live otherwise.' 'I am not a spend thrift, but the city requires a great outlay.' 'It is not my fault if I am erratic, if I have not yet settled upon a definite course of life; it is a fault of youth.' 1969 "SHE SAYS MY HOUSE IS DARK ..•" 655 "Let us not seek our disease out side of ourselves; it is within us, it is inlplanted in our bowels. And the mere fact that we do not per ceive ourselves to be sick serves to make our cure more difficult." If we grow myopic, let us not IDEASON persuade ourselves that the world grows dark around us. If our own failings hamper us painfully, let us not try to place the blame out side ourselves ... "let us not seek our disease outside of ourselves," for the fault is our own. ~ The Non-System LIBERTY I'M a firm believer in the notion that all that society owes any man is the right to do as he pleases to work, not to work, to provide a service, to dream, or to create so long as he doesn't interfere with another man's right to do likewise. If I want to do an honest day's work to support my family, I should be free to do so. If I don't want to work, then I shouldn't bother others who want to, nor should I expect that they owe me part of their earnings.

Man is a needy being. If I feel that I can provide one of these needs, then let me do so. Galileo was troubled that the time for the swing of a chandelier was the same for a long swing and a short swing. Others in the same church saw the same thing. Only he dreamt and created. Left to do so without outside interference, most men will create, even if only to provide minimum sustenance. And all the while, where is the system? We need none. Indeed, we have few systems in our socie~y that are doing for man. Producers seem to get by despi te systems and plans, however well-inten tioned, that for the most part im pede free enterprise. We have sys tems, systems that watch systems, and systems that overlap. We have planners, planners that watch planners, and plans that overlap. Give me a chance to act with out roadblocks, because in the process of trying to eke out a liv ing - a single working man or a corporation - I'm preoccupied with obstacles. Let's not make others live as we do, but rely instead on mutual trust and respect. We can very well take care of ourselves if not oversystematized by others.

MARTIN SCHAFFER, Allentown, Pa.