LIKES AND DISLIKES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 691, 17 June 1929, Page 5

LIKES AND DISLIKES

OUR QUEER HUMAN CHEMISTRY j (By Evelyn Vivian) Though we think differently when we are young and full of untried theories, there comes a time when we have to admit that there is no solving the problem of mutual human attractions and repulsions. Youth can find any number of glib reasonswhy for its loves and friendships. It is pathetically and loyally convinced that fine attributes alone can win its suffrage; that if older eyes look askance at any dubious friendship it is because they do not “understand.” When their own eyes grow older, the word “understanding” comes less trippingly to their lips. When, not once, but over and over again, they find themselves attracted to someone who, accoring to all their precious standards of yore, is a sheer “outsider,” they become humbled. And that humility is deepened -when, per contra, they are repulsed by people so rightliving, so altogether admirable and worthy, that they have perforce to doubt their sense of selection. They make the inevitable discovery, in fact, that likes and dislikes are mainly a matter of queer and unaccountable human chemistry. That the world is full ot people who react to each other in certain ways for reasons that have nothing to do with moral choice. That there is nothing in common between heart-to-heai t liking and detached admiration. That it is no use summing-up the hundred-and-one definite and tangible reasons why we ought to like So-and-So, and as cordially dislike Someone-Else. if that Someone-Else happens to be our chemical affinity, and So-and-So is not. So-and-So may be a selfless saint; Someone-Else the epitome of selfishness; but if, along with that egoism, is embodied the mysterious attraction so many thorough-going egoists can exercise, saintliness minus that vital spark can but win the esteem that is distinct and separate from the intimacies of the heart. That is not to imply that sinners rather than saints evoke the most impassioned human affection, but that saints are not loved for their sainthood any more than are sinners for their sins. Not vice nor virtue, but sheer chemical essence, determines the intensity of human nearnesses. There are certain ingredients that mix well; there are certain colours that harmonise; and others that clash. Certain notes in combination make harmony; others achieve discord. No ingredient, no colour, no note, is right or wrong until it has associated itself with some other ingredient, or colour, or note. And this association is right or wrong, not according to selectivesense as dictated by logic and reason, but the sheer lucky hazard of human chemical affinities meeting and mixing. That is about all there is to it, and we can get no forrader!