DANGERS OF RETIREMENT

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3308, 30 March 1926, Page 6

DANGERS OF RETIREMENT

HOW TO USE LEISURE, Many men, having' eagerly looked forward for years to their retirement and their release at last from daily routine, have only found their leisure savourless. For a few weeks it may bo pleasant not to have to set off after breakfast to the office; but within a month the leisured man is looking for an excuse to drop in at the office, just to feel again the familiar flow of active life around him (says the “Yorkshire Post”). And instead of retirement proving restful and refreshing, the victim of it finds that as soon as his energies cease to be called upon they begin to decay. He finds himself dull and listless, more easily tired than over in his life before. Those effects, partly physical and partly mental, have often been noted, but it is novel to find them confirmed by acturial investigation.

Mr Cyril Warren, a well-known actuary on the staff of a leading insurance company, has just arrived at this confirmation after a close study of mortality among pensioners from the staffs of banks and insurance firms. He has investigated the histories of 13,000 retired “blaci coat” workers, and he has found an exceptionally high mortality during the first year of retirement —higher than in almost any of the succeeding years.

This is partially explicable by the fact that a certain number of workers retire through ill-health. But a much more potent reason, Mr Warren believes, is that “the effect of altering the mode of life, suddenly breaking with the habits of forty years or more, and having unlimited -time with nothing to do, is literally to kill the man.”

This conclusion is really a great compliment to the efficiency of the human machine, and there Is no doubt that, given healthy conditions, the human brain and body have been built for an immense output of energy which few of us ever achieve. If we could ail work regularly with the feeling that our energies were being used to the last ounce, we should all be much happier and much healthier. Some such idea is frequently enforced upon us by the doctors, who tell us that we habitually underwork our brains and under-exercise our bodies, and Mr Warren’s discoveries are direct evidence that too much leisuhe is at least as fatal as overstrain. But the matter is hardly so simple, for the doctors are also In the habit of warning us aaginst the growing speed of modern life, and the foolishness of business men who kill themselves in the unrelaxed pursuit of wealth.

What is the solution of this apparent paradox? The truth seems to be that the one fatal condition for the human organism is monotony—either monotony of work or monotony of idleness. Wo need not fear working too hard, but we may justly fear working too continuously. The human body must have output, but, like all living organisms, it works best in a regular rhythm of output and repose. Two of the most fatal tendencies in modern life are that work is too monotonous and leisure too laborious. True creative work and true recreative leisure are sadly rare, and the result is that a large proportion of our activities are flattened down to (V sort of dead level, which neither satisfies human energies nor restores them.

Modern human beings, in short, arc becoming too much like machines, which ask for nothing better than a perfect regularity of not-too-rapid revolution. The business man who collapses on retirement may have needed more leisure all his life. What he does not need is a monotonous period of toll suddenly superseded by a still more monotonous period of leisure.

The business men faced with compulsory retirement at a certain age would do well to remember Mr Warren's advice, and look round for a hobby in good time. But it will be far better if. instead of his having to choose a hobby, the hobby can choose him. Retirement will then mean for him not freedom from work, but freedom to alternate work and leisure ns he pleases. Then he will find that .even as his body grows old, his spirit will enjoy such an active youthfulness as he has, perhaps, never known. We have much more time than ever wo had, but are our libraries more fully utilised? Seventy-five per cent, of the public never use them. Is our appreciation of great literature more widely diffused? asks Mr F. W. Rafferty, in the "Brotherhood World," who in an able contribution deals with another aspect of this question.

Those workmen of Dukinfleld who moved a vote of thanks to Macaulay for having' "written a history which working men can understand,” could hardly have given a fetter example of the use of leisure.

Macaulay’s leisure had produced the History, the leisure of others had been devoted to its reading, and their appreciation came back as an encouragement to the writer. We may b sure that those who appreciate Macaulay went on experiencing other like pleasures, and creating the desire for such experiences in others. These are Ihe gifts that great literature always brings.