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You are here: Live Your Life E-zine > Hostel Newsletters - 2010 > July E-Zine > Matt the Mouth

Matt the Mouth

I love the phenomenon of how you can become so immersed in your own thoughts that you are oblivious to any worldly events going on. For example, the other day here in Paris I was sitting on a bench and I thought I was contemplating the mysteries of the universe. In reality, I was staring at a lamp post for fifteen minutes with my tongue hanging out. I’m guessing things like that never happened to Aristotle. Anyway, the focus of my daydreams on that particular afternoon was history. It wasn’t any particular legend or event, but history itself - the noun.

I think history gets a bad reputation. People say it’s boring, irrelevant, full of dead people and so on. Also there is of course the fact that any story told over and over again, even from one nun to another, is going degrade to about 37% truth. So yes, history is mostly fabricated and we have no idea what really happened, but it’s also invaluable to us. It teaches us lessons and hopefully keeps us from repeating past mistakes. By the way, my own personal history has taught me to never again accept a dare that involves the words shotgun, Vespa and whisky. History also tells us about how other generations lived - which brings me to the point of this article. We are a generation of sissies. The points that follow are hard evidence that, by historical standards, we are the equivalent of a bunch of dandelions. Whiny dandelions.

1. We Have Unbelievable Transportation
You know how much it sucks when you’re sitting on that padded seat at the airport terminal and the announcement comes over the intercom that your flight has been delayed, and that you won’t be taking off to Touristonia for another three hours? Well, imagine that you have to make that trip with every item you own, on your back, under the beating sun, and that it’s going to take around six weeks. Oh yeah and you’re travelling using those flat things at the bottom of your legs known as feet, or if you’re lucky, some sort of quadruped. If the idea of working that hard doesn’t make you feel like we have it extremely easy, then consider the multitude of fatal diseases that people used to contract while moving from place to place. Perhaps you’ve heard of dysentery?

2. We Have Anaesthetics
I will admit that this is something that doesn’t come up too often in daily life, but when it does you should thank every god that’s ever been worshipped, that anaesthetics were invented and discovered. I know it’s hard to comprehend but, you are not invincible, and if it hasn’t happened already, you probably will have surgery at some point in your life. Nowadays they knock you out for all the gory stuff and you awake hours later, doped up and happy. In the days of pre-anaesthetic surgery patients got to experience every second of the knife entering their skin, muscles and even scraping against the bone. Also worth noting is the fact that hatchet-like devices were commonplace in surgical kits. Of course, on some occasions, the patients would be offered a shot of whisky prior to the operation - in order to dull the senses. If you think that’s an effective remedy then head to your nearest bar, have a drink and then poke around at your internal organs with a fork. Report back.

3. We Have the Internet
That magic box that you require everyday - like it’s digital heroin - should make you think twice before complaining about how difficult anything is today. Research, entertainment, communication and opening Swiss bank accounts are just a few examples of things that had to be done by hand in the past. With Google the answer to virtually any question is at your fingertips. For instance, one Googler recently asked: “What are the sexual dislikes of women?” and after he asked, he had the answer in microseconds. Just a couple of decades ago, said Googler could have only learned that very crucial information by good old trial and error (mostly error). In a similar vein, prior to the internet, people had to actually go out to a store and interact with a live person in order to get porn. You see? You guys really do have it easy.

- Matt Smith