ON BEING INTERRUPTED.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20309, 18 January 1928, Page 8

ON BEING INTERRUPTED.

IS THE WORLD TOO MUCH WITH US? It is characteristic of the phenomenon of interruption that while we interrupt nobody, we ourselves are always being interrupted (says Muriel Harris in the Manchester Guardian). _ It is true that when we stop a person in the middle of his work there is always a good reason, and also probably the work is not very important, and any way we do not stay more than a minute, and finally we have tact and judgment—which cannot always be said of everybody. But in our own case we seem to exist in order to be interrupted. It is only necessary to concentrate upon a particular subject—to work out the plot of a novel, or to attempt to count the stitches of a new pattern for jumpers—for several interruptions to take place at once. So regularly does this happen that it suggests a law of interruption based upon the profoundest of human instincts. A person who concentrates —even if it be only upon the births, deaths, and marriages—suggests danger. He is escaping from the community; he is escaping from his family, his friends. Or, it may be, he is offended, angry, plotting. He has to be interrupted to ascertain that nothing untoward is going on. There are very well ■ marked phenomena under the law of interruption. It often suffices to read a book or to write a letter to evoke interruption. ihe moment we have written “ Dear Father somebody is filled with a burning desire to know the time or wonder what day of the week it is. Even in the privacy of our own room there is a tap on the door and someone —never ourselves, of course —says tactfully, “Just don t take any notice of me. I wanted to see that the fire was all right.” To take up a book fills innumerable hearts with a yearning - for human society. To attempt to follow the plan of the bungalow in which the murder has been committed is to invite not one, but continuous interruptions, which is one reason why many of us read in bed. To sit still and think is still more provocative of solicitude on the part of our fellows. There is something sinister about thought. Men fish or smoke pipes and so distract the general attention from the fact that they may conceivably be thinking. Women have to be disagreeable if they wish to think, and to be disagreeable and to think at the same time is psychologically impossible. „ . , , , Perhaps the tactful friend, who does realise that one wants to think, to concentrate, is the greatest interrupter of all. You are told silently or otherwise that you need quiet, that you shall be quiet. There is a tiptoe atmosphere which makes you want to shout or disclaim that you ever think or work at all. There is even a tiptoe interruption—a coming into the room especially set aside for you—to fetch a vase out of the cupboard—“ which I am so sorry I forgot! ,T You are compulsorik set in the role of thinker or worker. You are held up as the one person in the house who cannot be interrupted with the homoeophatic results that of all things you long to be interrupted in the old happy normal way. But while we never interrupt other people on principle, while we only complain of other people that while we are talking they will interpolate remarks, we do carry on the law of interruption by systematically interrupting ourselves. This is especially the case in domestic life, where a thousand familiar sounds and objects reminds us of everything upon which we are not trying to concentrate. It is only necessary to sit down to write a report, or to learn the rudiments of Italian grammar, or even to follow an article upon the dwindling trade of Great Britain and how reprehensible it is, for us to see that the flowers want perking up, to wonder why the postman hasn't come, to remember that we promised to telephone before 10 o’clock or that it is early closing once again and what a bother it is. It is only necessary to do the flowers to remember that the clock has not been wound, or that the Aberdeen may have come in with muddy paws. It is only necessary, in short, to determine upon one thing in order immediately to feel the necessity for another. This may be, no doubt is, the mark of a great mind. Balzac is alleged always to have thought of the next novel while he was writing its predecessor. But it is interruption none the less. It is the conspiracy against thought # in which one is oneself the chief conspirak°There is only one subject on earth which is exempt from interruption. This is not music, during which one thinks of a thousand other things. It is not a journey, for, despite the rigours of time-tables and train services, one is always thinking of the place one is not in. It is bridge. Bridge alone has a sanctity which makes of interruption not a crime, not an error merely but a lack of savoir-faire which sends t\io interrupter to Coventry, with the consequent inability over tf> interrupt again. A serious bridge player may not even distract the thoughts of his “ four ” between-whiles. At most he may say reproachfully, “ But I have doubled my hearts,” or “ Why didn’t you play your queen? I shouldn’t have put my king on.” It is characteristic of bridge conversation that it must be mostly negative, reproachful, justifiably wrathful, restrainedly bitter. The unanimity of feeling about the sanctity of Bridge—it is nearly always written with a capital—really does preservo it from interruption. It is an illustration of what might bo wore similar concentration and consecutiveness possible on the more ordinary subjects of living and dying. If whatever is is good then interruption must take a high place in the scheme of existence. It is continuous and increasing. The telephone almost interrupts by itself now. The loud-speaker obtrudes itself more than the most tactful friend. The community sprint is organised interruption, while movement from place to place is interruption in its highest form. But still the humbler, simpler methods sometimes have their way. There is no bettor training for the nerves, the temper, for that stimulus that is common'}’ known as irritation, than the well-worn formulae, “ Please don’t let mo interrupt you,” “ I won’t keep you a minute,” ' I really must be going; I know you want to work,” “ I only hist wanted to know,” and it must bo said that these also show not the slightest sign of falling off either in quantity or in potency.