Arlo Mertz experiences his inner life as a process of growth and maturation, nurtured by his involvement with others and the positive and negative encounters this generates.

Arlo Mertz is motivated by a need to work in common with other people and to share life’s pleasures and pain. His commitments to other people are of paramount importance to his personal development. This dependence may present difficulties with individual self-assertion and make it hard for him to make decisions alone. If he wants to achieve inner equilibrium, Arlo must behave in such a way that his actions yield benefits to others as well as himself.

Arlo Mertz demonstrates great interest in the outside world, social affairs, and anything else that contributes to the growth and development of society as a whole. Clubs, organizations, and other forms of partnership attract his attention and motivate his behavior. He tries to protect himself from his subjectivity by adopting an impersonal approach to life. Devoted to the common cause, his destiny is no longer his alone. It is almost entirely controlled by the people whose cause he has espoused.

Arlo Mertz is ambitious and has a natural tendency to better himself socially and intellectually. His ideas and aspirations are grandiose, and he will be eager to share them with others. Although he is kind-hearted, Arlo enjoys being in control of situations. He derives great fulfillment from the role of the protector and will surround himself with people who need him. Arlo is eager to obtain recognition and honor, but extremely fearful of disgrace. His visions derive from his ambitions, often aglow with idealism. However, they may be somewhat unrealistic and impractical. Social recognition and esteem are essential to Arlo, and he will demonstrate an amazing ability to achieve the high goals he sets for himself.

Arlo Mertz is a realist. He approaches life pragmatically and even his feelings are based on rational, tangible evidence. He bases his judgements on past experience and is prone to skepticism. A hard worker, he takes pride in his own endeavors and has a personal concept of his productivity. His possessions help him assert himself as an individual and act as an antidote to any feelings of insecurity. As a result, material accomplishments may preoccupy him more than either love as a passion or intellectual or philosophical considerations. Nevertheless, he becomes attached to anything which offers him certainty.

Although you may not necessarily notice the fact about yourself because you are so strongly engaged in actions, feelings, or material concerns, you sometimes lack sound judgment. This impairment arises from a difficulty in obtaining perspective on yourself and your life. You may be puzzled by your troubled relations with others. You must make an effort to detach yourself from your personal reaction and observe it from an objective, more distant standpoint. If not, you are likely to find yourself under stress or pressure because you did not give enough prior thought to tactics and strategy. You may also experience dissatisfaction in your intimate relationships because you might struggle to get in sync with others. You give little time or respect to anyone you see as too “intellectual,” because you resist adapting to new ideas and viewpoints. In fact, an idea that rubs you the wrong way mentally and/or emotionally may elicit an explosive reaction. Self-analysis can be challenging for you and you tend to refuse to develop a solid, permanent idea of yourself – and this plays a lot of tricks on you.

You work harder than others to understand other people’s feelings. But this seeming lack of empathy and compassion for others simply mirrors your own difficulty in understanding your own feelings and emotional needs. You are not insensitive, but you are baffled by your own emotions. You see the emotional world as a foreign terrain, perhaps fraught with hidden dangers. Becoming familiar with it would present more drawbacks than advantages. As a result, you may appear to be hard or aloof. You might struggle to establish a rewarding relationship, as you seek special individuals to bond with. If you were able to accept and understand your own emotions, you would have an easier time grappling with other people’s feelings. You have a strong desire for emotional independence, and might have trouble seeing other people’s emotional needs. You might even be the first to deny that such needs are real. As a result, your dependency on others is unconscious. Because it is seen as such a threat, it is repressed. Actually, although you offer conscious resistance to anyone who tries to lure you out of your emotional bubble, you are always making timid, half-conscious forays into the world of feelings, because your loneliness and fear are so unbearable.