Mundane Musings

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 411, 20 July 1928, Page 5

Mundane Musings

Has Civilisation “Sold Us a Pup?” I “watt” not (yes, I know, but I’m so pleased with it) if it is true, as an English writer says, that an elec-tro-chemist and physicist was lecturing to the medical profession recently, that there is at present an appalling amount of eye trouble, and prospects of diseased eyes for the world and its children, with probably much .blindness for its grandchildren. Due to the use of electricity. But I shouldn’t be surprised. From what I can make out. and as far as my unscientific mind can see it, every one of the blessings and marvels of the twentieth century seems destined to turn us into hypochondriacal, hypocritical, hysterical, monomaniacal. myopic, idiotic, dyspeptic, blind, dumb, deaf, spineless, diseased, erotic, neurotic and tommyrottic mortals.

To put it. briefly—civilisation seems to have sold us a pup. Tt is just as if Fate said to Progress, “Come on, m’dear let’s show these earthworms what’s what,” and thereupon both conspired to inspire us to invent such things as high speed, high life, radio, telephones, airplanes, crowds, motor-buses, trams, plumbing, lifts, late nights, cocktails, pianolas, skyscrapers, sky signs, hustle, efficiency, restaurants, typewriters, cigarettes, dope, small print. pictures, made dishes, charabancs, tinned food, and all the other irritant, over-stimu-lating nerve-and-peace-and-content-de-stroying wonders of modern life. Well, the operation has been successful.

But in all probability the patient will die out. In the interim it wears a face like a penny kite, which just shows you how it’s enjoying life. Indeed, the only folks who can safely be guaranteed to look as if life were really, truly beautiful, are the children (and in these days of unempoyment, not nearly all of them), and young lovers. And that’s only because neither knows what’s coming to it. Consider, however, the everyday life of an everyday person. The trains almost dislocate his spine, motor-cars shake the stuffing out of him, conductors pull bells before he’s halfway in or out of public vehicles, and send him flying into the lap of some old gentleman. And the noise! Oh, my! The noise! The whistling of ever-cheerful office boys, the thunder of passing lorries, roaring trains, motor horns, telephone bells and that diabolical buzzing in the ear when something goes wrong with it, the screech of awkwardly-changed gears, the banging of doors, and the hammering and knocking that goes on everywhere. I don’t ask for much in the next

world, but I should like a spot of peace. Well, it’s no rise worrying. Fate and Progress still appear to be in league with one another, and the most most of us can hope for in this ultra-civilised vale of tears and diabolical echoes and complication is a pea,ceful, contented, mildly-happy home of retreat to which we can retire at the end of each imperfect day. Where we are spoken to kindly and sweetly, and no one bites our heads off. Where there is comfort and repose and tranquillity. Where we can be an amiable cabbage, a person of peace. Where we are understood; where we are loved and tolerated in spite of our faults. And where we can tumble into bed at nigbt after saying between tbe lines of our prayers, “Tbank goodness for simplicity—even for only a few hours of it.”