“Too much love will kill you,
Just as sure as none at all.”
From the Queen song, “Too much love will
kill you”.
For around five years now I have been
teaching English to a student who is a little unusual. She doesn’t own a computer. She doesn’t own a mobile phone. If I want her to read a lesson plan before
the lesson, I have to print it out and give it to her a week in advance, rather
than just sending an email. If something
suddenly comes up and I would like to re-arrange a lesson, I have to call her
landline and leave a message on her answering machine. In the heart of Tokyo, surrounded by vending
machines and fast food restaurants and all-night stores, it feels a little
strange to be dealing with someone who can’t be quickly reached.
On the other hand, I can see the temptation
to turn one’s back on some modern conveniences.
A different student of mine said to me the other day that convenience stores
were springing up around her apartment like mushrooms. She lives a ten minute walk away from her
local train station. There are already
four convenience stores on the road between her apartment and the station. Last week she saw a notice on the wall of a
construction site on the road. It said
that the site would soon be occupied by a new convenience store. Does anyone need to pass five convenience
stores in a ten minute walk? What
inconvenient thing could happen to you in the two minutes since you saw the
last one?
Convenience is generally good. But still, you can have too much of a good
thing. If you don’t believe me, think of
the Queen song, “Too much love will kill you”.
Love is great, but have too much of it and it will lower your life-expectancy! Convenience is great but have too much of it
and it will lower your IQ and self-reliance.
I remember going on a night out in Osaka with
my flatmate when we lived together in a small town, between Kobe and
Osaka. When we missed our last train
home, we decided to walk back in the dark alongside the train tracks. From memory, it took us about five or six
hours to walk home. But we were
supremely confident that nothing bad could happen to us because we were bound
to pass dozens of all-night convenience stores along the way. And so we did, stopping for a drink, or to
use the bathroom, or to eat some weird cheese snacks, or to ask for directions,
many times before we made it home. If it
weren’t for those convenience stores we might have learned some discipline, and
planned our night out a little more carefully.
And we might have gotten home and stopped drinking much earlier. Too many weird cheese snacks and too much
convenience can kill you.
Vocabulary:
in advance – before some planned event
to reach someone – to successfully contact
someone
a temptation – a desire to do something,
especially if it is wrong or unwise
to turn one’s back on something – to give
up on something and avoid it
to spring up – to appear or grow suddenly,
like a fast-growing plant
self-reliance – the ability to do things
for oneself
one’s flatmate – someone who shares an
apartment with one
from memory – As far as I can remember
bound to – almost certain to
No comments:
Post a Comment