Visiting Downton Abbey, er, I mean, Highclere Castle

Hello, Highclere. Yes, the tune played in my head the second the house came into view 😅

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take photos inside the house (where I experienced many a dopey Downton fan moment as I walked through familiar rooms, passages and staircases) but it really is something. The gardens are amazing too, even on a gloomy day like today. Atop that, however, the Egyptian Exhibit was actually really interesting. Lord Carnarvon's (as in Carter and Carnarvon) descendants live here, a fact I of course only found out after looking up the place because of Downton.

#cheerstv #highclerecastle #hampshire #happydowntondork

Revisiting: A Stroll through Washington DC

Korean War Veterans Memorial, Washington DC, taken October 2010

Those stony eyes just stare back at you, never flinching much like the rest of the soldier, hunching mid-trudge. The memorial does its job. It reminds you of things you’ve never seen. Of pain you’ll never experience. Those eyes made of stone simply a cold shell shaped by a sculptor’s hand that will somehow, with no words, no sound, destroy at least a little bit of that innocence which you have the privilege to own. 

Telepathy has been and always will be real. Via such memorials as these, men and women I’ve never met have spoken to me and told me countless stories about the world and about history. They have been able to do so despite barriers of time and place and with nothing more than strokes of pens and brushes, shaping of metal, and light captured by the mechanical eye of a camera. 

In this way, walking through DC and stumbling upon memorials I hadn’t realised were around the corner or at the end of the path, I was able to absorb pieces of history, just some of the pieces of the very story of humanity. I saw, if only for a few moments, the men in the jungles, among the trees, the fears in their eyes. I felt the rapid beats of their hearts and the tremors in their limbs as they continued their way towards an uncertain destiny. 

I then had the liberty of feeling that shot to the heart, that ache that is born when you realise just how many people have sacrificed and have been sacrificed for the very world in which I have the privilege to live; those who have literally lain down and become the pavestones of the paths and roads which brought us here. 

On their backs, exists my life, lest we forget. Lest we ever forget the debt we owe. Lest we ever forget the need to bring true legacy forward.  

This is the world. In one is all. 

I remember being struck by how little I had really pondered this particular war. Men died as they always do when mankind decides to decimate one another for whatever reasons, whatever gains. Yet historically tucked (conveniently or inconveniently) between WWII and the Vietnam War, a mind so happily untouched by such large scale conflict as mine was able to simply forget. As far as I know, I lost no one in this war. But many did and many will never forget. They have no luxury like mine. 

I have learned a great deal every time I’ve had the fortune and opportunity to travel. Largely, what I’ve learned is that my life is one of great comfort and privilege. 

And, on my life, I wonder if I will ever be able to truly conjure a means by which to express gratitude or appreciation. 

☮

The History of the World, Every Year

What an amazing video - I was pretty much glued to the screen for the entire 20 minutes. It will require a good few re-watches to get a hold of the things you miss while trying to keep up with everything that happens, y'know, in analysed recorded history, but they will be just as captivating, surely.

An incredible job by the people involved. Trying to picture the timeline and everything that eventually pulls together to create the tapestry that makes up a life, the history of a single human being, is a huge enough endeavour, let alone the movement of every single human through time.

Looking from the outside and then diving as far and as deeply in as possible only continues to emphasize the beautiful and insane complexity of the world. It would be amazing to be able to Dr Manhattan view it all, but hey, these kinds of videos are a pretty great glimpse.

Cheers, History.

[Repost] On the notion of Belief - Do Science and Religion really have to be incompatible?

Am I a Christian, Pastor Timothy Keller?

A friend on Facebook posted this article from the NY Times and it's a great conversation between the Pastor and the interviewer, Nicholas Kristof, about questioning faith. Pastor Kelly makes some wonderful points questioning the notions that skepticism and science are necessarily incompatible with religion and suggesting that secularists 'should be as open to questions and doubts about their positions as religious people' - all things I not only agree with, but deeply believe in. I really do recommend people give it a read, whatever they believe. 

It was in that spirit, that I wrote the below last year. Well, that spirit and somewhat admittedly incendiary response to comments on a topic posted to the IFLS Facebook page about giving up sugar for Lent hence of the moments of tonal aggression. Why a repost? Because pretty much any response I have to the above linked article is pretty much already summed up below. 

As always, my overarching stance on pretty much anything is that I respect the respectful, regardless of where they stand on the spectrum of belief. 

Originally posted on April 4, 2015:

'Science and religion are based on different aspects of human experience. In science, explanations must be based on evidence drawn from examining the natural world. Scientifically based observations or experiments that conflict with an explanation eventually must lead to modification or even abandonment of that explanation. Religious faith, in contrast, does not depend only on empirical evidence, is not necessarily modified in the face of conflicting evidence, and typically involves supernatural forces or entities. Because they are not a part of nature, supernatural entities cannot be investigated by science. In this sense, science and religion are separate and address aspects of human understanding in different ways. Attempts to pit science and religion against each other create controversy where none needs to exist.'

The National Academy of Sciences on the compatibility between science and religion

I do encourage everyone to read the rest of that page linked above.

Earlier today, the I Fucking Love Science (IFLS) FB page posted a link about what happens to you if you happened to give up sugar for Lent. I'm always somewhat wary of seeing links like this on IFLS, not because I'm not religious, quite the opposite, but because I've become accustomed to the hostility and mindless bashing that comes with even remotely daring to have the notions of both science and religion in the same vicinity. I have seen it before when IFLS linked to an article talking about the potential discovery of the birthplace of Jesus. Now I understand that IFLS and any similar sites are not The History Channel or otherwise historically informative, but when I see comments like, 'Why are you reporting on a myth', I am filled with a very quiet but very real fury (look up the history for two seconds, honestly). On today's post about sugar addiction that dared to mention Lent, some choice comments included, 'If you practise Lent, there's already something wrong with your head' and 'do people who fucking love science observe Lent?'.

Clearly that first comment is far more incendiary than the second which, outside of my own bias and doubt, could have been genuinely meant. In that case, I will answer it with a resounding yes. Some people who fucking love science actually observe Lent because they are both scientists and Catholics or Christians. In fact, growing up, the majority of priests I knew were scholars in science, most notably physics. Even now, some of my friends who are scientists and engineers are also very devout Catholics who have no problem pursuing science and practising their faith at the same time. Bearing further mention are the countless Christian or Catholic scientists who have contributed so significantly to our modern understanding of the world. How many people know who Georges Lemaitre, Angelo Secchi or Roger Bacon are? Look them up.

[On a personal note, I am a happily practising Catholic with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology (although one who admittedly chose not to pursue it as a career but professionally assists others who have) who agrees wholeheartedly with the use of the scientific method to learn more about the world around us. Any qualms I may have with scientific pursuit usually fall under the umbrella of scientific ethics (an area into which I undertook postgraduate study), often in the area of bioethics (eg. cloning), but such areas are generally contentious and without medical or scientific consensus so I'm far from alone on that count, religious or not.]

Essentially, what is upsetting and angering about comments that immediately jump on the science and religion can't coexist is that these days, some such declarations (not all, I'm sure, but many) are made without having actually attempted to read or research the idea and appear to have become Pop Fact, much like the notion that religion has caused the most wars (again, fury) despite the fact that according to recorded history, only 123 out of 1763 wars and less than 2% of all people killed in warfare have been classified as religiously based, according to the Encyclopedia of Wars by Phillips and Axelrod. Yet, people seem more than willing to blindly accept that religion is a bigger source of evil than outright human greed and territorial conquest and the need for power and control.

Also, from experience, a lot of people who seem to 'love' science, have no damn clue what it actually is. As a Psych student, I was often told by people I knew in the hard sciences that 'Psych is not a science' despite the fact that the method by which I spent a degree being taught to study observable human behaviour was most definitely the scientific method and the statistical analysis that followed (which I have gladly left behind) was engaged to ensure we were obtaining results as statistically significant as possible. We didn't do that shit for fun, we were trying to see if the variables we had manipulated in order to test our hypotheses were actually making a real difference - just like people do in labs. Pardon us for trying to scientifically research something that is intangible and therefore more difficult to assess. To this day, I say those studying cognitive psychology are some of the most creative people I've ever encountered. Being able to construct experiments to test and observe memory? Insanely imaginative and clever.

But I digress. As the statement made above by the Academy of Sciences points out, scientific reason and faith and belief look at things from completely different angles and ultimately, that's how you want to view the world - from as many angles as possible. Considering we live in an age obsessed with pluralistic thought and perspective, it's odd that people are then only willing to engage in understanding the world via one very often flawed means. When journalists investigate a story, attacking it from just the one side or the one perspective, it begs questions of bias, an agenda and a lack of objectivity. Why is it suddenly completely objective to stand by science and nothing else?

I think what people get confused is scientific fact versus scientific discovery and possibility. More likely than not, what many people take on board as scientific 'fact' is nothing more than the replicated results of studies that provide evidence for particular conclusions to be drawn. These are not facts, they are findings that potentially support hypotheses and once disproven or falsified, will be altered. As an undergrad science student, I was trained to write, '... there is evidence to suggest...' ad nauseum. Even in areas of more solid and tangible results, for example, biological or medical discoveries and treatments, there are only so many treatments, medications and therapies that work 100% of the time. As a sufferer of a number of chronic medical conditions, I can at least personally attest to the fact that many treatments that have worked on many past patients have not been able to work on me and I am not alone in that at all. When it comes to science, we do what we can with the knowledge that we have and still test what works and what doesn't. The rest, we take on almost as a form of faith, eg. I have never seen these medical results in others for myself, but I have taken it on faith that the medical community backing these assertions aren't simply lying to me. In that same spirit, I have never been to space, seen the moon's surface for myself or seen the Red Spot on Jupiter with my own eyes, but I have faith and trust in those astrophysicists who have done the research for me.

Now, if someone has no belief or has chosen not to believe in the supernatural (I don't, however, tend to adhere to the notion that anyone chooses what they believe. While specific beliefs can be altered, belief in itself is simply that. You believe something or you don't), then fine, if you have no room for any form of spirituality in your life or are happy in the notion that biological or neurological processes or quantum mechanics are enough explanation for the more intangible aspects of life, then by all means, that is absolutely your call. This does not, however, give you the authority to declare as fact beyond a shadow of a doubt, that those who do believe in a supernatural aspect of the world are either dead wrong and intellectually pitiable because in some cases, the likelihood will be that those people have put a lot more thought into it because that which is intangible bears far more need for thought by nature of its invisibility.

I do understand that there are people out there who have thoughtlessly decided to follow one belief system or another, among them Catholics and Christians, however, this type of believer is not strictly bound within the arena of religious faith. There are blind adherents to scientists, philosophers, hell, nowadays, even celebrities (I'm looking at you, Jenny McCarthy, incidental anti-vax champion. More fury).

Rather than demonise, however, as I've always stood by the notion that everyone believes what they do for a reason, whatever reasons they may be, at the end of the day, by all means, disagree, mock, even, if you really must, but maybe once in a while, instead of burrowing comfortably in your warren of disbelief/belief, ask someone you just do not understand - why?

War

It's strange to be so brashly titling this post considering the lifelong fear I've held on the subject. You could say I was a dramatically fearful kid and when I was about 7 or 8, I came across AJP Taylor's The Second World War - An Illustrated History in my brother's room and after that, my fear of kidnappers and cyclones swiftly turned into a fear of armies, soldiers and dictators.

I won't pretend I read the book in its entirety because I certainly never did however as the word 'Illustrated' would suggest, there were a great many pictures in it and many of those were intensely traumatising to a young kid. Sure, the rather comic pictures of propaganda from during WWII were almost a form of cartoonish relief, but I ultimately got the gist of just how horribly the world suffered between 1936 and 1945 and that new information was terrifying.

Not to mention well timed. In 1990, I was 7 going on 8, and much as I tried to avoid the news, I wasn't ever able to escape the reports of what was happening in Iraq and Kuwait and joining the growing mini-encyclopedia of horrors I was slowly constructing inside my head (thanks to Mr Taylor) were reports from the news, the newspapers and our monthly Reader's Digest, of the atrocities being committed by Saddam Hussein and his army. A measure of how deeply internalised this information became is a dream I can still vividly recall in which an Iraqi ship had somehow made it's way all the way to (the dream version) of Sydney Harbour followed by my dad and myself being taken prisoner and being lead onto the ship. Thankfully I woke up before anything drastic happened but I continued to live each day battling fear about a war that was happening on the other side of the world.

Then of course 1992 came around and the war in Yugoslavia broke out, the subject of which is the reason this post has come into existence. By '92, my consumption of new articles and stories of various wars had unfortunately increased and again my very sensitive young mind was not so well equipped to handle the footage of bombings and people huddling from snipers in Sarajevo. I cried a lot that year about the people in Yugoslavia and, being a kid, really only understood that Serbs = bad. My Year 3 teacher at the time happened to be Slovenian and her attempts to explain the conflict, whether she meant them to or not, only confirmed for me that the Serbians were the bad guys.

I remember reading about the 'Romeo and Juliet of Sarajevo' (again, likely thanks to Reader's Digest) and wondering why, why, why would the sniper have taken the shot. Did he not know that the boy, Bosko, was a Serb? Did he not understand that if Bosko could love their 'enemy', maybe there was no reason to kill them? I know now that it was never determined that a Serb killed the two but I wasn't to know that back then and all of it just felt senseless. Later in high school, I would end up reading Zlata's Diary not too far followed by The Diary of Anne Frank, and hating the level of innocence that had to suffer at the hands of powers who simply did not care.

As I write this, I'm suddenly reminded that the reports of this kind obviously never ended, but, as this article I found from 1994 states, they simply changed places. Mixed up in amongst the stories and reports from Iraq and Yugoslavia, were the reports from Rwanda and learning that Hutus and Tutsis existed. It was just ongoing and alongside the more fun things that Buzzfeed likes to remind us of about the early '90s, these are things that I also associate with that time.

Yesterday and today, I ended up Wiki-ing the siege at Sarajevo, realising that I still didn't really have a complete idea of what happened at the time. Even before I'd ever set foot in Europe, something that still sets off a ping in my mind is when people have referred to or spoken of Serbia and Bosnia as 'amazing holiday destinations' because my immediate association is a war which somehow still feels recent. Bearing that in mind, I decided to look it up and here I am, slowly recalling bits and pieces that I'd read at the time and filling in more of the gaps.

I associate all of the conflicts mentioned above with the pre-9/11 world - a world which as of late, I'd begun to see with the rosiest of coloured glasses. 9/11, the wars that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq, the terrorist attacks in Madrid, London, Mumbai, the civil war in Syria and the rise of Islamic State not to mention the increasing frequency and spread of attacks, these things have inevitably led to thoughts of just how far flung the world is. Of course, it's not hard to feel that way in the face of the current state of the world and our increasing ability to see it all happen as it happens.

But then I read again about events like Sarajevo and quickly remember, alongside the aforementioned concurrent conflicts, things like the constant reports from the Middle East, Rodney King and the LA riots, the earlier bombings in NYC and the World Trade Centre, the shootings in Port Arthur and Dunblane and of course later, in Columbine and remember just how often I thought the world was 'dying' back then, too. These days, the nature of news and social media only means we hear about more incidents more quickly so it makes sense that the world could be just as bad as it was back then, only we're reading and hearing more about it now.

And that notion could be further supported by the fact that, despite wherever we are now, the world is probably at a point where most 'civilised' countries aren't all at open war with one another. Unlike the centuries prior. With the recent Brexit and discussion around the efficacy and the purpose of the EU, it still amazes me that a set of such closely packed countries that have easily spent the last two millennia at war have lived in relative peace since the end of WWII. Barring, of course, the former Yugoslavia and the recent Russian annexation of Crimea and infiltration of Ukraine.

I now wonder how naive a notion that is in itself. The Middle East continues to rage on, Afghanistan is still tattered by violence, the South China Sea only continues to simmer, Venezuela is in the process of civil collapse, Boko Haram continues to tear Nigeria apart, extreme racist groups are growing in popularity, just to name a few things... we don't all have to be bombing one another to be destroying one another.

But honestly, the conclusion I end up drawing, if you can even call it that, is similar to that of the article I linked earlier. This is the world's curse. I grew up with the above, my parents' generation were doing nuclear attack drills in their classrooms, my grandparents' generation endured the world wars as did their parents, and so on.

So I'm going to out and out disagree with anyone saying the world is more screwed now than it's ever been (multifaceted topic, I know, but in terms of global and territorial conflict, I'm going with it and from the looks of things, Google agrees with me, reliable bastion of knowledge that it is). It's just behaving as it always has. People will always want power, territory, identity... and there will always exist those who decide to kill to get them, the sad truth remaining that innocent people will be the most numerous casualties. It's difficult to end on a positive note after such a conclusion and particularly considering this all remains a very real personal fear, except to acknowledge and genuinely appreciate the fortune and privilege in which I get to live when so many needlessly suffer purely due to an accident of birth.

In the meantime, to lighten this just a touch, something I read on Cracked a couple years ago - 18 Undeniable Facts That Prove the World Is Getting Better. Sure, it's a little US-centric, however entries 17, 12, 7, 2 and 1 do garner cause for hope.

All The Light We Cannot See

Done. Found it by chance, started it on Friday morning on the train, now mired in that familiar regret that comes with literally closing the book on the worlds created. Pure story, sheer skill, insanely lyrically beautiful and totally worth however late I wake up tomorrow. I've no idea who you are, Dave Eggers, but I couldn't agree more. #readit #rereadit #books #doerr

In Lieu of Photos - a snapshot of my trip to Europe last year

These boots walked Auschwitz and Birkenau. They also made it out. I am therefore officially luckier than 43,525 people, many of whom’s shoes or boots remain there till this day. #inlieuofphotos #europe2014