YOUTH’S SELFISH SLOGAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 352, 12 May 1928, Page 19

YOUTH’S SELFISH SLOGAN

DESPISING THE MIDDLE COURSE “Fed up!” That is the ejaculation one grows most weary of these days. It is a sort of parrot-like slogan that passes from lip to lip, and expresses the too facile depression of the younger generation. Do they ever realise, I wonder, the extent of the harm they work, to the nerves of others as well as to their own, by that stupid repetition of boredom’s catchword? And how its mere reiteration can rob themselves, and those with whom they come in contact, of simple everyday happiness and content? It would seem that, failing the heights, the deeps are preferable to the tranquil plains, where nothing much happens; but where, for that very reason, we are spared the shocks of life. Why poison the serenity of those level plains with that insidious and soul-weakening fatuity, “Fed up!” It is while we are permitted to steer that uneventful middle course, devoid of thrilling excitement but equally devoid of devastating sorrows, that we should be gathering grace to appreciate the first and strength to ensure the last. There is neither grace nor strength in the silly “fed-up” attitude that demands anything but existing circumstances and conditions, ,no matter how clement rhe skies. It is the sheer selfishness of the “fed-up” slogan that so sickens adult hearts. It may mean nothing to the care-free youngsters who use It too mechanically for it to have the slightest real significance: but it can mean infinite irritation and hurt to those older folk who could utter it with profound sincerity, were they not determined to rule the writhed catchwoid out of their own cosmos! To hear it flung about by light-hearted young things without the smallest justification whatever, and in the presence of real weariness of spirit making a valient fight against the pessimism of profound discouragement, is to make one long to slap—so that it hurts! the bright-eyed and p ; nk r aheeked battalions of the fed-up pose. Like 'he boV in the fable, there may come a time when they really mean it. And maybe no one will believe them, or : lift a kindly hand to dry their genuine tears.