THE ALLOTTED SPAN

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1578, 25 November 1924, Page 2

THE ALLOTTED SPAN

THEORY AND PRACTICE. (Contributed). Theoretically man should enjoy a much longer span of life than the traditional three score years and ten. Actually, the large majority I of city men do •not do go for the reason that under modern conditions the average citizen exhausts, in mere fussiness, his energies for sheer want of common sense or will power. Exhaustion of nervous and mental energies does not imply that the victim has lived a useful life. His breakdown is seldom attributable to hard work, but ordinarily to this fussiness which is one of the cur.-es of modern city life. The social conditions of the city of to-day—the bustle of business life, the hustle, the clash and clatter and rattle of traffic, the clamor of the streets —tend to aggravate nervous overstrain. This overstrain may be counteracted in a measure by the temperament of the man, but the calm and unruffled temperament is becoming rarer in the .ordinary centre. The evils of nerve strain were multiplied during the war years. 'The very form of relief sought in recreation that amounted to feverish dissipation constituted not even a palliative. The wild hysteria on the termination of hostilities marked a climax, but the people of the average city did not readily return —and have not yet returned —even to the more placid conditions of pre-war years. The Australian city, in insane and unhealthy hustle, may not have reached the pitch of the greater American cities, though the life of such cities as Sydney or Melbourne resembles that of the American centres, and the resemblance grows more pronounced from year to year. In a sense, the nervousness —the hustle of the majority of citizens —may express the struggle for existence, the fiercer competition among men engaged in commercial pursuits, whether as employers or employes, and their efforts to hold their own under the conditions and exactions of modern life. The average city man actively engaged in business is subjected to certain nervous strain from the start of his journey to his office or shop in the morning till his return in the evening. His own nervous temperament is possibly inherited from generations of city men under the conditions of industrial life since the first application of steam, the development of machinery, and the revolution in industrial and commercial life within the last century. The nervous strain, and the weakness of will, which allow the ordinary city man to fall a victim to this mere fussiness, indubitably contribute t,o the weakening of the race as of the individual. The very benefits which have been won for mankind by science are defeated by the evils of civilisation—the strain demanded in order to keep pace with modern conditions, the hustle and bustle, and the removal of man from his natural environment to the artificial life of the great city. The city dweller may be envied by the countryman, but jthe advantages from the standpoint of health are all with the latter. The conditions under which he works on the land, the healthy if hard toil in the open air, and the steady routine, tend inevitably to longevity, of which the city worker robs himself. The irony, from the city man’s standpoint, is that all the worry or hustle does not increase his efficiency. The more people fuss the more they waste their natural energies. The man who fusses constantly over his work is steadily expending and reducing his efficiency. He is impairing his health, and on the slightest symtoms of ailment he worries to such a degree as to render his restoration the more difficult; his nervous temperament makes it impossible for him to do otherwise. To counteract the strain of city life, and the effect of congested living conditions, the medical man naturally urges the benefits of the open air and the change to the country. To- repair th~ damage to fhc system from the luxuries within reach of the many, he prescribes the simple and restricted diet. For the modern city dweller who is the victim of nerves the soundest of advice is simply not te iuss. Mere fussiness doubtless does moi e injury an l in - pairs the efficiency of individual and community to a greater degree than any fallacy or phase of modern life. Endeavors to overcome the evils of social conditions of the time should include as a feature of our educational system studied development from youth up of the will power by which the nervous strain resulting from the hustle of modern life will be corrected.