--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Jordan, William George collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 14 number: 6 published: 1911-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'William George Jordan, "The Crown of Individuality. XVI," *Improvement Era* 14, no. 6 (April 1911): 485–488.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1406unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1406unse start_page: 485 end_page: 488 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1911-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1406unse publication_year: 1911 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1911, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Crown of Individuality. XVI The Crown of Individuality.* BY WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN. XVI. — Running Away From Life. To fight life's battles one must keep close to the firing-line. Pain, sorrow, anxiety or trouble must be fought at close range. They cannot be evaded, ignored, nor deserted. We must vanquish them, or they will vanquish us. We must look them squarely in the face — and fight them to a finish. Retreat means simply defer- ring the battle until we are weaker — not stronger. It is running away from self— running away from life. It is as foolish as trying to dodge the atmosphere. Thousands in the world today are running away from life to escape some mental or emotional pang. They are seeking it by the road of amusement, distraction, travel and change of scene. They seek not new wisdom to cure a wound nor new strength to bear it, but merely— some way to deaden the pain. These are in quest not of peace, but of temporary oblivion — not self- conquest, but self-forgetfulness. They are taking emotional cocaine which, like all powerful drugs, has a dangerous reaction. The swiftest engine in the world cannot carry us away from a grief that holds our very hearts -in its close, deadly pressure. No matter how rapidly the mile-stones are whizzed backward, we cannot escape the pain. It is snuggling close by our side and is eclipsing all the beauties of life and nature around us by its dull, insistent note. The magic spell of music may carry us for a little out of * From The Crown of Individuality. Copyright, 1909, by Fleming H. Revell Company ourselves, may temporarily fill our hearts with rest, calm and peace, may silence the voice of a forsaken duty or an unconquered pang of memory, but unless the music inspires us with the wine of new purpose, the vital, impelling courage to act as we should, it has been only — musical cocaine. And as we walk the streets homeward the pain starts afresh, as if the very respite had made it want to revenge itself for our forgetting. If we could pack our worries and anxieties— those restless imps that feed on our happiness and starve our souls — in storage before we set out on a travel tour, change of scene might be of real value to us. It might be a physical upbuilding, a mental refreshing, and a moral rebirth. But if our worries are going to camp out in our stateroom at night and keep us awake to listen to what they tell us and to walk the deck with us by day— they prove to us that running away has been a vain flight — not a val- orous fight. If they loom so large before us that they shut out the view of the Alps and darken the skies of sunny Spain— why, we then realize we have not been fighting at all, but merely taking the same old play of our sorrows on a European tour where only the scenery is changed while the cast of emotions is the same. We constantly tilt at windmills of distraction, leaving the real battle on the field of the soul — unf ought. Tiring of the friends who have been near to us and whom we disqualify either because they will talk about our sorrow or they will not, we hunt up acquaintances or semi-friends of the vintage of five years ago and try Society. This is only another brand of cocaine. We imagine, self -deceptively, that six nights a week in even- ing dress might of itself banish our sorrow or stifle our secret grief. But what is the use of it all if, when the evening clothes are removed, we find ourselves still in the unremoved straight-jacket of memories we would give aught in the world to escape forever? The intensified pain seems even greater as we contrast our misery with the happiness of others. How do we know that they, too, are not wearing strait-jackets? We become nervously, morbidly over-sensitive. An innocent chance word may, in an instan*-, fan into flame the embers of an unconquered pain. Some simple, ordinary incident may cause the THE CROWN OF INDIVIDUALITY. 487 river of a sleeping emotion to rise suddenly and almost flood the soul. By some subtle electric disturbance in the brain's central office a thousand calls of different new impressions may successively ring violently the bell of the one dominating memory that haunts us. Every road of our thought leads inevitably — to the Rome of our grief. We must just drop our cocaine, stop running away from life, and fight the battle, alone if alone we must — till we rise sancti- fied, sweetened and strengthened — a victor on the field of seem- ing defeat. Each of us has his own special enemies that would take from him the — crown of his individuality. These are the times when we must stand still for a little, get our bearings through the fumes and the smoke and — face and fight the life that is. Some say change of scene does lull, does sooth, does cure. No. Nature may with time help us to forget, but it is usually only putting our grief or trial to sleep if — unconquered. We are left too often with scars of morbidness, dead ideals, awful regret. We are not calmed but paralyzed — in certain emotions. We are weakened ; we have lost the possible strength of a victory that would make all future pain easier to bear because of finer character, confidence, and courage. In assaying our trouble, let us first see if it is really as great as it seems. We often listen to trifles of worry through a micro- phone of fear, where the footfall of a few flies is exaggerated till it sounds like the battling hoofs of a cavalry charge across a wooden bridge. There are petty cares that we should be ashamed of noticing. Some of them are no larger than a dewdrop that the heat of a few seconds' clear thinking should dissipate into noth- ingness. These we put under the miscroscope of our anxiety until a microbe seems aa big as a prehistoric monster. Treat th^se as if they were mere mosquitoes of fate trying to annoy the Sphinx- Learn to look these troubles squarely in the eye, smile bravely, be calm, and say to them, — "You never even touched me." There is one great sorrow in life that carries with it a sacred- ness that no irreverent hand can touch lightly. It is the sacrifice we have to make on the altar of our love. Love, in some form, is the greatest thing in life — the others are understudies. The sad- dest hour is the loss of one we hold dear. It is bitterly hard when the loved one still lives, but separated forever from us by misunderstanding, injustice, folly — love grown cold. There is that other loss, when the most loved passes from us into the eternal silence. The death of love transmutes every high light of past joys into agonies of memory by comparison with present deadness. The death of the loved one, with love still strong, crowns their life together and makes past joys sweet, serene and soothing in the Holy of Holies of memory. The first gradually eclipses the mem- ory of joys; the second, the memories of sorrows — while intensify- ing the sweetness of remembered happiness. In either form, it speaks our supreme sorrow, the taking of the last fortress of our courage. There is one form of distraction that is not — running away from life. It is in seeking to be genuinely interested in the daiiy lives of others, in growing more unselfish, in heartening others, in standing strong by those in need, in distributing as an administrator to all humanity the estate of love that has been ours — in deeds of cheer, constancy, helpfulness, consolation, kindness and thought- fulness. Let us feel, in every sorrow, that there is something within us, a divine spirit that rises superior to all else in life, something imperishable, unperturbed, impregnable — something that can no more be sullied than a ray of sunlight from the heart of the sun. Let us fight — fight with the certainty of winning a greater, bigger, finer self. We cannot always evade the darker side of ife, but we can dictate the effect we will permit it to have on us. Let us fight like Jacob of old wrestling with the angel, and say, "I will not let thee go unless thou bless me." And the angel of grief always does bless us — if we battle aright. Somehow, somewhere, somewhen, the conquered sorrow is transformed into finer strength, broader sympathy, tested friendship, gentler toler- ance, greater charity, and a truer vision of the realities of life. If our sorrow be inevitable we must bear it bravely so that we may bear it easier. If we can get salvage of hope from the wreck of failure we are lessening the loss. Often a sacrifice of petty pride will bring back all the old happiness. Fight must