QUESTING
Even with centuries of hindsight, we still have to wonder - even to question the sanity of people in the past who dared to go against all the best wisdom of their time to make discoveries which have, often,
reshaped civilization as we know it. And, we might note at this point, not always for good.
A common example about which many school kids wonder is that of Christopher Columbus.
I assume the textbooks still make much of people of his era thinking that the world was flat and that if one went too near the edge one would fall into oblivion. As a kid I wondered how the water stayed where it
was, if the ships went over the edge of the world so readily. Children question a great many things adults place before them as fact.
I wonder if our present estimate of what inventors, explorers and others in every field of endeavor may be slightly awry? I have a strong feeling the people of the Middle Ages, let’s say, for example, were not as
dumb; certainly not as “stupid” as we seem to think they must have been. Without doubt, historians and others have, in an attempt to show the modernity of their particular generation bad-mouth past thinkers along the same lines
to add to their own stature. We may be guilty of doing the same thing today, as we compare our space achievements to the science fiction concepts of Jules Verne, and others, long ago.
We should be appreciative of the hard work and serious thought of the oldsters put into civilizations advances rather than trying to minimize their contributions to make our appear better. Think about it If some of
those men and women had all the tools, equipment, devices, informational stores and encouragement we accept as being normal today - think what their inventions and discoveries may have been!
It took more than just a lot of self-confidence for those in previous generations. They faced obstacles which are unknown to us today. Many were attempting to do thing which were, for instance, condemned and
forbidden by the Church - then the ruling power in both a religious and at temporal sense. Thinkers, in those days, undertook to develop portions of life which remained a mystery to many. Their heritage dictated they consider cosmic
lore, astrology, necromancy, numerology and such backgrounds of inherited material to guide their investigations. Those who had the nerve to step out in distinct investigative paths of their own often found success in new
discoveries.
Old Chris may have been told the world was flat, square, or whatever, but he could see and he was aware the way it seemed to be, indeed, must be judging from the stars and planets he saw in the sky along with
the sun and the moon. No doubt many people thought the world was, indeed, flat, and we still have some people today who believe the Earth on which they reside is flat. Columbus had some people, albeit a minority, I suppose,
who thought the world was round. He gets credit for proving it to the satisfaction of many but not all.
The past is a gold mine ideas for us to seek out and develop. They are largely those ideas which failed when tried in ancient times, but with today’s equipment and informational sources we can certainly make
some of the oldsters dreams come true.
What is your particular field of interest or concern? Lest we be called “ignorant” or “stupid” by coming generations, let’s get busy and invent, create, devise, re-arrange something - a product or a process - which
will serve mankind’s needs.
A.L.M. August 23, 2002 [c-621wds]
