If personality is such a priceless thing, when not suppressed, how can we be sure that our own personalities do not become suppressed? Confidence; there is nothing else that will do it. Confidence in life, in people, in God (if he exists), and in ourselves. But what do we do when life seems to be against us, and experience teaches that men betray, or at least let you down? Even worse, what do we do when our passions threaten to master us, and to destroy our confidence in ourselves? How do we combat the fear that Martin Buber may be right, and that the I-Thou relationship always becomes the I-It relationship? Perhaps I should explain that the I-Thou relationship is the trustfulness and sincerity of youth, the innocence of young love; the I-It is the mutual calculation of old age. The I-Thou is the serenity of old age; the I-It is the cruelty and lust of youth. The I-Thou is the compassion of middle age; the I-It is the ruthlessness of middle age. How can confidence defy experience? The answer, of course, is that it cannot. If experience teaches these things, then confidence must go; and we must submit in the end to the personality becoming suppressed, with all the overtones of death that this suppression implies.