"Sing to me, Muse, of that endlessly cunning man, who was blown off course to the ends of the earth, in the years after he plundered Troy."
So begins one of the greatest books I've ever read and for the last three decades, like Odysseus, I have crisscrossed the globe for other masters - always keeping time to their drum. Having recently freed myself from their shackles, I am inclined now to see some of the world on my own terms and enjoy my own schedule: when and how I want.
My fascination in life has always been the junction of ancient and modern. Are we really an advanced society or is that just emotional comfort food for the technologically recalcitrant? Ancient man clearly had advanced ideas about the world, but was it in a practical form like electricity and computers and why did we forget his knowledge? The walls of the pyramids show an ancient light bulb and battery source while in the Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece, an artefact from before Christ's time sits quietly. We are told that this Antikythera Mechanism was created to predict celestial and astronomical developments years in advance, so this would qualify as a computer.
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| Dendera Lightbulb |
Why do we consider ourselves "advanced" if, a few decades ago, our first computers were the size of buildings and my Grand Mother grew up without electricity? Instead of perceiving the world as we are instructed to, let's take on a more grassroots view of the world through the human eye. How about if we endeavour to meet people not from individual nations with particular political views and agendas, but endeavour to meet people who make up the tapestry of humanity.
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Antikythera Mechanism
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| Schematic of Internal Mechanisms |
It is this tapestry that I intend to interact with and, through this medium, try to help others understand that the prejudice of our fathers is the reason our world is so divided today. Besides the metaphysical aspects of life as a journey, the world's religions exhort their believers to travel as a means of meeting and understanding their fellow man. Let's begin this journey of enlightenment together by removing our barriers to understanding.
