“Neuroticism,” in the one-of-Big-5 sense, is defined, in part, as “the tendency to experience negative emotions, such as anxiety and depression. Negative emotions “tend to persist for unusually long periods of time, which means [the individual is] often in a bad mood”; it is “connected to a pessimistic approach toward work, to certainty that work impedes personal relationships, and to higher levels of anxiety from the pressures at work”; furthermore, “lacking contentment in one's life achievements can correlate with high neuroticism scores and increase one's likelihood of falling into clinical depression”; and, “individuals high in neuroticism tend to experience more negative life events.”
To be possessed of a temperament inclined toward neuroticism is a peculiar kind of chronic, low-grade wallo. The presence of the cloud persists, and overhangs more and more, and hangs lower, and generates further clouds. One is tempted to collect evidence to the contrary, and as this evidence accumulates it hangs lower and heavier, weighting one down with cumbersome sparks of contrariness. There is an inability to be still, or contented, as one is haunted by the errors of a past that might as well be hallucinated for all it can be affected; and torments oneself, involuntarily, with dread about a future that extrudes so gradually into the waking hours that it can be shaped, yet so frequently remains stubbornly resistant to one’s efforts.
I am increasingly convinced it is not only possible but imperative for those thus afflicted to transmute neuroticism into conscientiousness. This requires an inversion of instinct, a conscious going-against of one’s grain. Misplaced love makes the twisted way seem straight: of one’s worry, of spiraling above activity, of the safety of continuous and unending contemplation over action and testing oneself against the world. If one is not able to charm oneself first, all is lost; and in a sense, high neuroticism is a failure of self-charm. One has to climb in the wrong direction, until the polarity reverses and one is found to be going up; or else, seek sleep again, and hope that one is carried off in a dream to the proper gate.