Dovetailing PersonalityBoreham often pleaded to his readers and hearers to aspire to full individual expression. Such a tendency could easily result in self-centredness, however, a balancing strand in the development of this theme by Boreham was the importance of attuning oneself to the crowd. Recalling his painful experience of controversy, Boreham wrote an editorial about the “dovetailing of personality” in which he said that “our ability to get along comfortably with one another” was one of the greatest sources of personal happiness and the condition that made for the well-being of society.[1]
In Step
Variously he pictured this art of life as “keeping in step with other people”, matching the mood of companions in domino style and “discovering and stressing points of affinity”. Boreham wrote other editorials on this theme, dealing with the nature and importance of friendship[2] and the way that war demonstrated that loyalty to a higher goal was the ingredient that developed a quality of comradeship transcending differences of religion, class and race.[3]
One of a Team
According to Boreham, the attuning of one’s personality to others was essential for achieving both “personal enjoyment and the greater good”. Putting this theme into its widest perspective he wrote: “We are living in a world in which each individual must recognize that he is an instrument in a vast orchestra, a member of a colossal team. Every man is an integral part of a Universe that includes God and Man, time and eternity, and only so far as he can try to attune his personality to everyone and everything in that superb scheme can he hope to attain to happiness himself or to radiate it to those around him”.[4]
Geoff Pound
Image: Each person “is an instrument in a vast orchestra.”
[1] Boreham, Mercury, 19 May 1951.
[2] Boreham, Mercury, 20 February 1943.
[3] Boreham, Mercury, 18 January 1919.
[4] Boreham, Mercury, 10 December 1921.
