WAY TO GO! You, too, have met people who seem to thrive on misery and suffering. Being unfit to meet condition of every day existence, they seek and often find sympathy from someone who allows them to lean upon that person's stability for a moment. The more such help they find; the more they will seek.
Let one such complainer stub his toe on a file cabinet at the office and attention is focused on the rising costs of limb amputation and about the worrisome social affects of wearing an artificial leg in normal society. Let them see one developing blemish on their own or your skin - any slight imperfection - and it is time to prepare for an epidemic - world-wide, with no other warning of a dreaded, unknown tropical disease for which no cure has yet been discovered.
Charles Darwin, the eminent naturalist, who did so much to make the Gallapagos Islands a part of our known world is geneally thought to have lived a rather dull existence. His mother died when he was four years of
of age and he grew up among older people. He studied to be a doctor and switched to Cambridge University to become a Minister in the Church of England. A non-paying job as "naturalist" on a ship called "The Beagle" came to his attention. He applied and got the job and spent five years in the South Pacific not too far off the western coast of South America keeping tab on non-typical turtles and other exotic sea creatures of the island area.
Here's the statement I came cross the other day - written by this man Charles Darwin who gave us "Origin of the Species" and other such works.
"If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week."
I found it to be of special interest that a man of such a complex mental capability as Darwin would see some things so simple and commonplace as being so important. He had missed much of this sort of "living", I suppose and spoke as have other learned men of the past - theologians, in particular - who have reminded us of how important it is that we "take time to smell the roses" that bloom alongside the troubled pathways of life. We have recently marked Charles Darwin's birthday - his 196th birthday - February 12th - which reminds us that we shall, very soon, be making he 200th - the Bicentennial Celebration - of his have lived among us -or off to one side of people of his day. He was never a complainer.
After two hundred years there still exists strong opposition to Darwin's views as to our being here at all. His enemies still exist and will show themselves at the 200th anniversary. Charles Darwin is one of the few men I can think of who are both admired and loved and yet distrusted and even hated at the same time.
Prepare for the Darwin 200. Read some good poetry - listen to some good music.
A.L.M. March 4, 2005 [c527wds]
