There was a time I used to collect bookmark, and I did have a collection of some wonderful bookmarks. Over the years it fizzled out. I have also seen fancy Paper weights in shops and movies but never took liking for them since these are too heavy. I prefer ‘book weights’, that hold pages open unlike bookmark. So, the book is kept open on the table so that you can peek into it while go about doing your chores. I realized, the content stays in mind for long since you repeat and leave it half way. This pic of ‘book weight’, these are lightweight artifacts mostly tribal in origin. I really don’t recall where I bought these from, it's been many years now. One is a bee in metal and another a crocodile in stone. The books are Tales from Ant World by Edward Wilson -the good thing about this book is that chapters are unrelated and so you can start from anywhere. The second book is The Invention of Nature (The adventure of Alexander Humboldt -The lost Hero of Science) by Andrea Wulf. I really cannot stop this without discussing Alexander Humboldt whom poet Emerson referred to as “one of those wonders of world”.
I really don’t prefer biographies or autobiographies, read it quite young as utilitarian reading -what in primitive understanding called ‘motivational’ so on, pushed by mainstream onto younger generation, meant to consolidate ideas of success through ego ride of popular as the society deems. Autobiographies and biographies were prescribed reading. During those days reading was meant to be for purpose, and reading indeed was about studying. Otherwise, why would you read?! It is a simple question that hides amazingly deviant nature of society, and how herds are initiated. Most of the times I instinctively sought exactly the opposite of what was told, and being part of crass evaluation of education it worked for me in the long run. It didn’t get me any ‘marks’ or suggestions of ‘intelligence’ but I was quite satisfied with myself. The reason why I was keen on reading without any purpose, and as randomly and widely as possible. This I enjoyed thoroughly, particularly encyclopedias, is where the seeds of useless reading and purposeless learning got consolidated. In a degraded society autobiographies can acquire sinister meaning. The context is always about power, money, nepotic connections, and even in case of scientific achievement it is voyeurism of personal that degraded society craves to locate some lessons which suits its grand narrations and acceptance among herd.
Human beings are quite complex and cannot be really worked into two-dimensional narrow description for simple comprehension and sale. Located in primitive society I had to be very careful as to how I invest my time; since there is always pull by overwhelming mediocrity and active herd trapping systems. It is not surprise at all that sometime back Hitler’s Mein Kampf was quite popular among youngsters. I even interviewed few -mostly in corporate management, and the reasoning they gave still shocks me. They aren’t too much bothered about ethics when the learning is ‘organizational’ (imagine to value a person for his organizational skill for systematically exterminating millions of people) and the potent ‘leadership’ qualities that this world presents. These were articulate youngsters from extremely comfortable background located in posh colonies of Delhi, capitalizing on best of education, and yes, striving to take up leadership positions and surely must have.
Humboldt: Our wonder of the world
I rarely read biographies unless ofcourse it deals with something
significant and not too much personal details of the person –a kind of voyeurism
that market thrives on. This book is quite well written and is really about importance
of Humboldt. I have read about Alexander Humboldt many years back, and few
months back his writings on Gutenberg archives. He was arguably one the most fertile
mind you can think of. A brilliant man in every conceivable sense. Humanity owes
much to very few people (ofcourse some we don’t even know -those who strived
for better world and vanished without leaving a trace of themselves
nevertheless a better world -atleast an attempt) and Humboldt is there right at
the top. His was a pathbreaking personality and influenced our understanding in
more than many ways. Humboldt was a unique exciting figure in the annals of human history,
and his ideas still shape our thinking. Aptly his name is associated with ocean
current, rivers, lakes, waterfalls, counties, town, mountains, bay, glacier,
parks…spread across Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Ecuador,
Columbia, China, south Africa, Germany, France, USA…infact Nevada was almost
named Humboldt. 300 plants and 100 animals are named after him including squid,
penguin so on. Interestingly Humboldtia lauriflora -a specie of plant,
was one of the earliest to be named after him based on his early publication, much
before he even undertook any voyage, and he was quite excited about it. This plant
is found only in Kerala and Srilanka! Several minerals carry his name, there is
a place in moon named after him. The man truly was one of his kind, a gift to humanity that an indebted world accepted with open arms.
Humboldt is celebrated for his scientific thinking and immense knowledge but he was not the conventional cerebral scholar, he ventured into rainforests of Venezuela, crawled narrow ledges of Andes Mountain, and travelled into the remotest corners of Russia. Ecologists, environmentalists, nature writers, poets, across the world carry his vision. He influenced important figures like poet Goethe (indeed Faust was very much influenced by Humboldt), Bolivar (his writing had revolutionary impact), US President Thomas Jefferson (his maps were of immense help, USA would be much smaller country without him, and he used his immense understanding of nature as standpoint against racism and slavery “nature is domain of liberty”), Thoreau (Walden wouldn’t happen without Humboldt), Darwin (was inspired by expeditions of Humboldt hence undertook his own journey that gave him insights into nature of evolution, and carried Humboldt’s writings wherever he travelled), poet Emerson who referred to Humboldt as “one of those wonders of world”) so on.
Alexander Humboldt is someone each person in this world must be aware of. A visionary, who with his scientific mind meticulously studied -measured and analyzed, nature, created weather maps, understood climatic zones across continents, and with his poetic soul and sensibilities sensed the web of life. As the world is increasingly enveloped in climate disaster concerns it was Humboldt who first elaborated on human induced climate change and warned of unforeseeable impact for future generation.
