The Wager, by David Grann; giving me greater context for understanding sea travel (in wooden ships, especially), and I learned that there were indigenous people living along the coast of southern Patagonia where the Wager wrecked. They must be very hardy and resourceful people indeed, given the cold and windy conditions of that region. The European sailors seemed primitive (using the term pejoratively here) in contrast; they all had scurvy and atrophy to various degrees, and had lost so many other sailors to illness and the elements, so reliant on the stores they brought, ignorant of how to survive off the sea and land (they found and were given by the locals enough to eat for there to be survivors who made it back to England, but it was an ordeal). I wondered at the past traumas and other events that lead to Euro-colonialism (this includes my ancestors) and the sense of entitlement that brings about actions like Spain and Portugal dividing the world in ~1600 (watching Shōgun on Hulu, which I also recommend). China also developed a sense of entitlement, but rather than go conquer Africa it sounds like they took their massive navy (dwarfing anything else at the time) on a sightseeing tour and returned home, satisfied with their own superiority.
I continue to be inspired to live more closely with the land and life around me, and Grann's description of the native people of Patagonia, with their healthy varied diet, vigor and cold tolerance, and kindness to clearly-suffering strangers, made a lasting impression.
The Computer Age is just a way of coping with humanity's widespread and hopefully temporary degradation and loss of culture and traditions that are sustainable over many, many generations. I see books the same way; temporary technology, a bank of knowledge and experience that, like bacteria in the appendix, can help us get back on track with oral traditions.
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The Wager, by David Grann; giving me greater context for understanding sea travel (in wooden ships, especially), and I learned that there were indigenous people living along the coast of southern Patagonia where the Wager wrecked. They must be very hardy and resourceful people indeed, given the cold and windy conditions of that region. The European sailors seemed primitive (using the term pejoratively here) in contrast; they all had scurvy and atrophy to various degrees, and had lost so many other sailors to illness and the elements, so reliant on the stores they brought, ignorant of how to survive off the sea and land (they found and were given by the locals enough to eat for there to be survivors who made it back to England, but it was an ordeal). I wondered at the past traumas and other events that lead to Euro-colonialism (this includes my ancestors) and the sense of entitlement that brings about actions like Spain and Portugal dividing the world in ~1600 (watching Shōgun on Hulu, which I also recommend). China also developed a sense of entitlement, but rather than go conquer Africa it sounds like they took their massive navy (dwarfing anything else at the time) on a sightseeing tour and returned home, satisfied with their own superiority.
I continue to be inspired to live more closely with the land and life around me, and Grann's description of the native people of Patagonia, with their healthy varied diet, vigor and cold tolerance, and kindness to clearly-suffering strangers, made a lasting impression.
The Computer Age is just a way of coping with humanity's widespread and hopefully temporary degradation and loss of culture and traditions that are sustainable over many, many generations. I see books the same way; temporary technology, a bank of knowledge and experience that, like bacteria in the appendix, can help us get back on track with oral traditions.