1937-11-06 — Page 8

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THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1937.

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JOHNSON-STEVENSON: At SL. Columbus Church, Bombay, un Thursday, 4th November, 1037, William Daniel Jolinson Frances Mabel Stevenson. cable).

The

(By

Thongkong Telegraph.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1937.

It hadn't occurred to me that Selfishness is a Disease

TOTHING saps health like

66 NO

selfishness." This

is what Tennyson calls "a jewel five words long that

on the stretched forefinger

ever."

I find it in a letter from Mr. A. H. Bacon, a medical student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

by

JAMES DOUGLAS

There is no doubt that unsel- of all time sparkles for when I preyed upon my unselfish

father and my unselfish mother. fish people are happier than sel- It is useless for me to pretend fish people, for selfishness is a that all children are selfish, for I barren search for happiness know that some children are un- which is invariably frustrated.

I have never known a selfish selfish, just as some adults are

person who was happy. On the unselfish.

other hand, I have never known an unselfish person who was un-

it stimulates me to write an essay on selfishness as a disease.

happy.

I am ashamed when I recall IAM doodling as I stare my selfish childhood, my selfish at the blank sheet of boyhood, and my selfish man- paper. I have been doodling for hood.. half an hour because I cannot I can recall many of my selfish answer the question which is acts, but I find it hard to recall. They gain more than they lose by

my unselfish acts. bothering my brain.

Those who try to make others happy are themselves happy.

Its effect upon the health of the selfish person is gradual, but it leads to all kinds of discontent and disenchantment and disillu- sion. The victim of this disense may possess everything that seems to be necessary for the enjoyment of life, but the joy of lify cludes him.

N the other hand, un-

ON selfishness does not

mechanical aids to the enjoy depend upon the material and men of life. It produces health and happiness even in poverty and privation.

Some of the happiest and appear to have no reason to be healthiest people in the world happy and healthy. They may lack everything else, but they possess the joy of being kind to others and of finding self-reali- sation in helping others.

their unselfishness. The secret

- Selfishness is not kind. It is of a happy life is escape from the self-torment of self-love, and actively as well as passively un- NO MORE EXCUSES "Am I selfish?" I hesitate to

SELFISHNESS is the the less we think of ourselves kind. It denies to others the confess to myself that I am sel-

habit of thinking of the more complete is our escape. grace of pity and comprehension. It expects others to serve it with- Prince Peter Kropotkin, fam-fish, but if I follow the example self first and foremost, and not

The pursuit of selfish plen- out giving any service itself, J .ous Russian revolutionary,

of candour set by Mr. Trevor of others. It is a state of mind.

sures as a method of escape from

Unselfishness leaves the studied wild animal life as well Wignall I am bound to own that

I start thinking of myself as introspection is practised by sel- soon as I open my eyes, and fish people, but it produces world better than it found it, my health has always been sap- often before I open them. I satiety, and in the end all selfish but selfishness leaves it worse. ned by selfishness.

think of myself as I get into my pleasures cease to provide an It is well that those who take more than they give should suf- bath and as I shave, and as I cat escape. The hedonist becomes a self all day long in all my re- self-pleasing develops into a dull greed. lations with others. I think of routine. There is no sadder or creature than myself as I lie in bed trying to more sorrowful go to sleep.

as the habits of the human species. It was his conviction that mutual aid, rather than struggle, is the rule of the wild.

I wonder if every selfish per-

Omitting the "killers" which son is as conscious of being sel- my breakfast. I think of my slave of his hedonisms. His fer in mind and in body for their

fish as I am at this moment of

I doubt whether the misery of selfishness is adequately es- enlightenment and illumination.

the sensualist,

timated, for the selfish appear As I examine my past, which is

In other words, I am a self- The reason why unselfishness to be happier than they are in inseparable frorn my present

centred being whose thoughts re- gives more happiness than sel- reality. They convey the im- and my future, I come to the volve round his own petty per- fishness is that it is based upon pression of well-being, whereas conclusion that I have always sonality. been selfish, that I am selfish now, and that I shall be selfish as long as I live.

In the jargon of psychology, I am an introvert whose mind per petually turns inwards upon it- self instead of outwards upon other people.

the sense of duty to others in their secret thoughts they are which is nourished by sympathy, unimaginably melancholy.

Selfishness is boredom. If you insight and understanding.

make their appearance in the best regulated fields and forests, it would seem that mankind is the most quarrelsome of the denizens of the earth. For the ordinary animal will only kill if he is hungry or in the protection of its own life or the lives of

The selfish do not see others study selfish beings you will find its young. Even a rattle snake

as others see them because they that they are tired of life. They There is no use doodling any

do not see others as they see have lost interest in everything gives warning before it strikes.. There is one rule which is pretty longer, for I cannot escape from

For some reason or other sel- themselves. They deliberately but their own gratification, and well universal in the animal the conviction that my selfish fish people are always surround- cut themselves off from fellow- they pay the extreme penalty of banishment from all the ed by unselfish people who help ship and comradeship.

sources of delight. There is. kingdom-for it would be sense-ness is an incurable disease.

I wish I could comfort myself think of all the unselfish people them to be selfish. I shudder to less to argue that animals of

THERE is no loneliness nothing more pitiable than the 80 absolute as the joylessness of a selfish old man different species do not kill one with the belief that other people who have conspired together to another they do not kill their are as selfish as I have always make me selfish. I take their loneliness of the entirely selfish or a selfish old woman.

I beings. Their hearts grow cold kind. That is certainly been, am now, and shall be al sacrifice of self for granted.

fatten and batten on it. ways, but I am sure that the world is divided into two classcs, the selfish and the unselfish.

own

true of the higher animals, or at least until one comes to the highest animal of all, proud

man.

Speaking of the cause of man's truculence, the Christian Science Monitor observes:

"It appears to lie... in com/titiona rather than in character. Con- ditions are deemed to be not as good as they might be, and therefore an effort, violent in intention if not always in action, is made to obtain better condi- tions at, the expense of others. This is true in the social domain as well as in the internationul sphere."

So revolutions.are bred: so are wars created, Some power

The selfish people prey on the unselfish people. I have been a preyer ever since I was a child,

NOBODY can restore the

It is painted remorselessly in Landor's epitaph on himself:-

I strove with none, for none was

worth my alrife. Nature loved and, after

nature, art.

and hard and they cease to be

joy of life to the sel- capable of joy in human society.

It has inflicted upon. NOTHING is so

un. The juices of life dry up in their fish mind.

itself wounds which can never- scrupulous as selfish- nature.

be healed. I doubt whether nesa. It takes everything that There is no laughter in the there is any cure for the disease is given to it without a jot or selfish person, for laughter is of selfishness in its final stages. tittle of gratitude. It uses up a shared delight, and selfishness the lives of others and then dis- shares nothing. It is a with- drawal from the geniality and covers fresh victims.

jollity of existence. It is an The supply of unselfishness is exile from the common stock of ing into a rage and becoming greater than the demand. The violent. The power of thought selfish create vast reservoirs of good nature and good humour. unselfishness in others. They Selfishness is a form of sui- and deduction has enabled man get what they want by taking cide. It is a slow starvation of to progress to a far height from everything from everybody and the soul. The process of soul- where he started in the dawn giving nothing whatever in re- starvation may be slow, but it is

turn. of history. Nor has the bright- of man's most useful ness weapon become dulled, ita edge! dinted. His works are a proof of the surviving capacity of his brain...

Class disabilities, writes a con-

feels that its position is inferior temporary, can be taken to con-

or less favoured than another's. ference.

National differences

sure.

BULLS AND INNERS

ធ

C).

From the Office Butts

The instinct seems to be to can be considered in good-will. A pessimist is a man who in snatch at the possessions of the Resort to force is inexcusable already fearing the morning

Warfare. after St. Andrews Ball. more favoured. That is a pro-among civilised men. pensity of children and puppies, potential or wactual, is an acknow-

# D and presumably it is never en-ledgment that humanity can tirely outgrown.

sink below the level of the beauts.

}

It cannot be denied that there

is frequently cause for discon-

The only possible, excuse

is!

. It is said that bagpipes have been played since 800 B.C. Much too long.

for

** O tent among children, young and self-defence. But that, too, is

room There's hardly old, communities, classes and often abused.. The only war countries. But neither can it which thinking people will join, argument on the Kowloon fer-

Hnggle has now been sent by air. We always inclined to the belief that it was never taken| away too quickly.

O

Now they are making ladies" gowns out of papier macke, This gives us pulpitation. *

☐ ☐

I warmed both hands before the

fire of life. It sinks and I am ready to

depart.

This epitaph has been over- praised by literary critics. It is a cold and callous portrait of selfishness by a selfish old man..

It is a false portrait, for Lan- dor strove with everybody. It is an insult to humanity to any that none was worth his strife." It is the gospel of a cynic. The reason why Landor's works are dead is that he had a dead heart.

#8

SELFISHNESS is death. This is true for life well as literature. Denn: Swift was selfish. Byron - was- selish. That is why their writ inga are dead. Pope was aclfish. That is why his poetry is dend boyond all hope of resurrection.

The world to-day is a dead world because it lo u selfsh An American scribe

world." Tho remedy for its ills is says unselfishness. The selfish nations "there is something about the are all dying, although they British Army Officer in the Farthink they are alive, He must be rich! He still East that is delightfully refresh- Their death may be delayed,

but it is inevitable../ lives in one of the leading hotels. ing." Enoal

D

be overlooked that each of these, as a crusade, is the "war to end rics these days. blessed with the faculty of wara." And that, if memory! reason, has a better means of does not play strange tricks, securing happiness then by fly. ivan fought some time ago.

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