Sir Isaac Newton once famously wrote, of his own scientific endeavours and discoveries, in comparison to those of others’, “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Given the use of the fingers on both of my hands and fifteen seconds to do it in, I could readily list a dozen or more names of people that I – for one reason or another – feel a deep intellectual and/or emotional kinship with and gratitude for; people without whom I would not have developed the qualities that I value most in myself. The twist? Many of them are people I have never met. Some were even dead before I was born. These names would include philosophers, musicians, writers, scientists and comedians (among other things). Having been born late in the previous century, many of the events, people or concepts that are so significant to me come from generations other than my own. This has created a certain experience of looking at existence in a rear view mirror as a newly picked up hitchhiker; seeing the sights passed by without having driven through them yourself. Perhaps the best way to describe it would be a kind of “lostalgia”: nostalgia for something gone that you didn’t discover until it was too late to have. How many times have I read a book, fallen in love with it, researched the author and discovered that he or she died ten or more years ago? And, worse, that this small sample of their abilities is all I, and the world, will ever have from now on. The train has finished its journey and all you can do is stand by its rusted remains, enjoying thoughts of what it must have been and could have achieved if it was still working alongside you. In memory of some of the people I’ve witnessed in my hitchhiking that give me this feeling, I will litter my writing with some of their words.
He who lives as children live — who does not struggle for his bread and does not believe that his actions possess any ultimate significance — remains childlike. - Friedrich Nietzsche
Certain examples are met easily and don’t require much adjustment. John Lennon’s murder three years before my birth, for example, is a prominent piece of mental furniture in our pop culture. Like a couch you’ve walked passed every day since you were an infant. These are the John Keats’, the Vincent Van Goghs, the Sylvia Plaths and the James Deans of our history and, along with their influential talents, their status as dead people was always part of their fame (from my birth onwards, at least). In fact, in the case of people like Van Gogh, had I been alive in his time, it’s likely I wouldn’t have known who he was at all and it’s only my living so long after his death that allows me to witness his work so readily. What do require adjustments are the George Harrisons, the Katharine Hepburns, the George Carlins and the Hunter S. Thompsons. Those whom were witnessed, in real time, making the transition from reassuring world presence to nonexistence.
I find that by putting things in writing I can understand them and see them a little more objectively ... For words are merely tools and if you use the right ones you can actually put even your life in order, if you don't lie to yourself and use the wrong words. - Hunter S. Thompson
To take Hunter’s case specifically: I was already a young man, in my early twenties, by the time of his death in 2005. I had only seriously investigated him and his writing a year or two beforehand, though, so my time of being consciously aware of sharing planet Earth with this frenzied maniac of truth and passion, who spoke in a slurred baritone of word chunks, seemed so criminally brief. What I learned very quickly from this man was that rebellion and speaking out are valuable actions and skills. But you’d better do it with intelligence, you better be well informed and you better do it with integrity and heart. I had only just barely fallen in love with his prose, entering into a state of wanting to take Australian law by the throat and forcing it to allow me to be legally married to a piece of literature, or even just a paragraph for a few years, before I was staring not at the talents of a fellow primate but of a dead new mentor. I still frequently reread his work and watch interview clips he did to this day. Part of me rejoices in the lessons he keeps giving, while another part always mourns the loss of an intellectual comrade.
I had ambitions to set out and find, like, an odyssey or going home somewhere … This home that I’d left a while back and couldn’t remember exactly where it was but I was on my way there. And encountering what I encountered on the way was how I envisioned it all. I didn’t really have any ambition at all. I was born very far from where I’m supposed to be and, so, I’m on my way home, you know? - Bob Dylan
Consider three names: David Attenborough, Stephen Fry and Carrie Fisher. Assuming I live long enough to meet the average Australian life expectancy rate, I will live to see a world without those three people. I could repeatedly read and/or watch Youtube content about any of them and the world will literally change around me, moving from a day where I’m watching a piece of the decades-spanning work of a living world figure to the very next day where I’m watching an excerpt from the life of someone who used to be alive. All of these people can be very distinctly defined as singularities. There will be no replacement for them. If I were born a hundred years ahead of when I was, hitchhiking in an era beyond their deaths, would I still discover and be affected by them so thoroughly, as I have been?
There is no other species on the Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have; self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything. It has two rules. First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be. - Carl Sagan
More recently, I’ve come to be influenced by the words and work of English-born American journalist Christopher Hitchens, a man famous for his intellect, his love of aggressive debate and, for some, simply as one of the most well-known and outspoken atheists today. It’s probably convenient that I would come to discover him now, over any other time in my life. Given the man’s far reaching vocabulary and experiences it’s likely that, however much I might have enjoyed pieces of his ideas when I was younger, I would not have understood half of his cultural or poetic references before now. Christopher’s literary and political knowledge encompasses a gargantuan amount of information, the consumption of which would possibly match the twelve labours of Hercules. His outspoken nature and passion for information makes him something of a next generation Hunter S. Thompson for me. This, sadly, is strengthened by the fact that Hitchens is suffering from oesophageal cancer, likely bringing the death of what could have been a long education alongside an also still developing human mind.
I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for a love relationship is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don't know what will be the end. - Michel Foucault
Even having never met these people, I will still mourn on the days they each die and on all subsequent days, when I remember all I’ve learned from them and all that I might have continued to learn, given more time in the world with them. Knowledge, for its own sake, is important to me. Regardless of whether the studying you do will contribute to things like your chances of employment and income, or not, acquiring the information in itself is inherently valuable and meaningful. I am the person I am right now just as much because of the people – the famous dead or dying figures – that I have named here as much as from any formal, face-to-face schooling from teachers in buildings I’ve received. I’m constantly trying to learn; to extend and build upon whatever I am at any given point and, sometimes, it works. As mentioned, there are qualities that I hold in myself that I treasure significantly. However, if I have any wisdom, any courage, any generosity or any honesty, I assure you, it’s because I was hitchhiking in the wake of giants.
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