V
In what has now been said there is a good deal of comfort for those who suffer the pains of self-consciousness, previously described. They need not seek a lower degree of self-consciousness, but only to distribute more wisely what they now possess. In fullness of consciousness they may well rejoice, recognizing its possession as a power. But they should take a larger unit for its exercise. In meeting a friend, for example, we are prone to think of ourselves, how we are speaking or poising our body. But suppose we transfer our consciousness to the subject of our talk, and allow ourselves a hearty interest in that. Leaving the details of speech and posture to mechanized past habits, we may turn all the force of our conscious attention on the fresh issues of the discussion. With these we may identify ourselves, and so experience the enlargement which new materials bring. When we were studying the intricacies of self- sacrifice, we found that the generous man is not so much the self- denier or even the self-forgetter, but rather he who is mindful of his larger self. He turns consciousness from his abstract and isolated self and fixes it upon his related and conjunct self. But that is a process which may go on everywhere. Our rule should be to withdraw attention from isolated minutiae, for which a glance is sufficient. Giving merely that glance, we may then leave them to themselves. Encouraging them to become mechanized, we should use these mechanized trains in the higher ranges of living. The cure for self-consciousness is not suppression, but the turning of it upon something more significant.