EXCELLENT DISCOMFORTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21153, 9 April 1932, Page 6 (Supplement)

EXCELLENT DISCOMFORTS.

LIFE'S LITTLE BITS JUST SUFFICIENT. BY AMORT STRATTON. They throng upon us at every turn of experience, those little discomforts that in their way are among the luxuries of living. So long as they fall short of actual pain and misery they may add zest to life by the sheer delight of their compensating satisfactions. Yet most of us are strangely unwilling to accept the law of the average and t-o take the bad with the good. We aro satisfied with nothing less than perfection. Modest fame evokes a grumble; what we want is world-wide celebrity. A -sufficiency for our needs leaves us with a grouch against the universe; we cravo for riches. Unsatisfied with simple happiness we demand the. largesse of high romance. It is; remarkable how few of us find our ideals in the wise acceptances of tho Little Bear. His porridge, you will recollect, Goldilocks found to be neither too hot nor too cold but just hot enough; his bed not too hard or too soft, but just right. Life may be niggardly of big things but it scatters its " little bits" with a spendthrift hand. Because of this the serviceable doctrine of " just sufficient" is our almoner of happiness in a world of average experiences. A Temporary Haven. How excellent a thing it is to be just sick enough to be made a fuss of; to find a temporary heaven in rest, made luxurious by ministrative attentions that flatter our self-importance, and underneath the sickness instil a subtle sense of wellbeing. Or to be just hot enough on a long tramp to shed one's coat and meet the bracing coolness of the breeze. Or to be just hungry enough to find a wedge of bread and cheese food for the gods, or thirsty enough to find in the waters of a running stream the drink of Olympians. Or to seek one's bed just tired enough to savour all the luxury of it. These are the joys celebrated by Stevenson and a gay host of other literary " hikers." But they by no means exhaust the miscellany of joyous discomforts. There are others of the homely and unromantic kind. To be sufficiently dust-blown and dirty to know the splendours of a gleaming bath of hot water; to be just sufficiently poor to revel in the adventure, as Charles and Mary Lamb did, of a new pair of shoes; to be just fashionable enough to sniff at tbei ultra-stylish and to commiserate the unquestionably frumpish; to be just sufficiently lonely to dream and enjoy one's loneliness; just weary enough to pass into nightly sleep without a restless turn. " Just sufficient'" implies neither mean ambitions nor miserly ideals. Just sufficient of hunger or thirst, sickness or weariness, poverty or possessions; just sufficient of excellent discomforts and just sufficient of their remedial antidotes is an ideal to " make the pomp of Empires ridiculous." I could be contented with infinitesimal Fame, and with the merest modicum of Fortune, and (this I confess) a great deal of Love; but these may seem poor indeed to the hankerers after Perfection. Well, after all, we need to be suspicious of absolute perfection. Adam and Eve could not endure the perfect garden any longer without hating if and each other. Can it be that the subtle Old Serpent was " just sufficiently" bad ?