REMARKS WITH A POINT

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 59, 1 June 1927, Page 5

REMARKS WITH A POINT

IF WE COULD BRING OUR CONVERSATIONS UNDER HEADINGS

Most conversation Is lazy and vague. We do not pull ourselves together to talk to our friends; we just wait till some stimulus from outside works on a brain cell and from that we “make conversation” inadequately, repeating platitudes, performing our own little tricks of mannerism, pursuing no subject far enough to reach any new light on it, giying up the chase, directly real mental effort is required of us. Most of us like this sort of talk well enough, it seems, and there does not appear to be a remedy for it. But supposing that we made up our minds to tell our friends something real and true every time we talked with them. Supposing we got our conversation under headings to ensure something being said—to prevent mere drift and vacuity. The true thing, however slight, is always interesting. It must not be exaggerated or dressed up in any way, but must be told as simply and as realistically as possible. The simple is the realistic, if we could only grasp that fact. Vital Facts This idea of regulating our talk would not have occurred to me if a friend had not suggested something bf the same kind for the improvement of our correspondence. People who write often to each other, she thought, might determine to tell each other of (1) the last occasion on which they wholly enjoyed themselves, (2) their most recent attempt to defeat their own faults or weaknesses, (3) —and this, she thought, would be very interesting—the last time they behaved extremely badly. Nobody will ever make a habit of regular confession either in friendly talk or in writing, but out of the nonsense of the suggestion we may glean a little sense. We cannot arrange our conversations under headings, but we need not sit down to talk with a mind full of exclamation marks, or of cotton-wool. (Average humanity tends to one or the other.) We can, if we like, throw a

backward glance on the days during which we have not met the friend to whom we are now speaking We can search there for something that is likely to interest her. A book we have read, a walk we have taken, a hat we have bought, a good reply that someone has made, even a thought of our own. if the thought has point in relation to our companion. Actual news naturally comes first, but sometimes there is no news, or what there is soon peters out when told. 1 think we should find that intelligent reviews of the immediate past, made for the benefit of our friends would cause us to live more interestingly. The habit would help our brains to “take more notice," we might live more vividly, more sympathetically.