In search of a resolution

I wonder if we’re gathering stones, or piling them up, striving to raise the very ground we stand on, live on. Building on the past, our ancestors turning in their graves, or watching from heaven, amused by our little problems. They saw the same things, perhaps in different ways. They too asked, “What’s next?” Knelt down beside their beds, faces buried in hands, or calling to the mountains. Which road to take? The one less travelled, the one you’ve walked before? How long can you wait for the reply to echo back?

 

Adam waits at the junction, the signposts are blank. He considers his options, he stands still and thinks, then he starts to pace back and forth shaking his head. Then he sits down, in the dust, legs crossed. A while later another man comes up behind him, he doesn’t stop, doesn’t even look at the signpost, just carries on down the left path. Adam hails him but gets no reply.

A second man appears, he pauses at the junction and looks down at Adam on the ground. “Do you know which way is best?” he asked.

“The last person went left,” Adam answered.

“Hmm. Guess I will too.” The man ambled off.

Time passed. A woman arrived.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” said Adam.

“What are you waiting for?”

“An answer,” replied Adam after a pause. “A resolution.”

The woman sat down. “A resolution isn’t an ending,” she said, “no answer will end your confusion.”

“Then what is a resolution?”

“A resolve.” The woman smiled. “A determination to get up an go on. Both of these ways are equally long.”

“And equally wrong?”

“Depends.” She smiled again.

“On what?”

“If you’ll let me go with you?”

“Which way should I go?”

“You choose.”

“I feel like you already know which one I’ll choose.”

“Maybe,” said the woman, “I’m not too worried which one, I’ve seen them both, but if you’re waiting for someone else to bring you your own resolve you’ll be waiting a long time. I’m not going to tell you. But if you let me join you I’ll make sure you get to the other end safely.”

“Right.”

“You understand?”

“No, we’re going right,” said Adam, getting up, “I don’t understand a thing.”

Montenegro

If you were to judge Montenegro by its airline company and the quality of their aeroplanes you might consider it to have some similarities with a bathroom that hasn't been redecorated since the 1990s. Slightly tired looking, with beige walls and hospital-blue curtains, fraying at the edges. Old but not ancient with questionable reliability. The airhostess gave the most laid back safety demonstration I have yet seen, waving her arms in various directions indicating that oxygen masks were somewhere in the plane and that the emergency exits might be above you, below you or have been missing for several years depending how you interpreted her gestures.
     Emerging from the clouds over the Adriatic, however, and swooping majestically towards Tivat Airport, the view was one of dramatic hills covered with trees and red roofs beside blue waters. The small towns were busy and the beaches crowded. Montenegro is a great clash of everything: people, culture, history. There are many nationalities in a very small space and it is hard to know who is a 'local' and who is just visiting. Ancient cities (dating into the centuries BC) are surrounded by modern developments and always there are the steep sided mountains, alive with the sound of Cicadas, that plunge into the salty waters of Kotor Bay, or lakes further inland.
     The people are neither overwelcoming nor standoffish. Visitors, and attackers, have been coming to this part of the world for millennia and no one seems surprised any more. Progress, also, might be coming; new buildings are going up, the tourism industry is strong, but there's no rush, things will happen in their own time and meanwhile the water is warm for bathing, there is food on the table (along with bottled water - no one seems sure if the tap water is safe to consume) and there is peace between politicians and governments it would seem.
     On the way out of Tivat Airport I noted that 6 of the first 12 flights that morning were headed to Russia. I had already seen a submarine base, hidden in a hillside, from the Cold War. This strategic location has always been more that a destination for holiday makers but I hope its days of war may be behind it, because Montenegro is pleasant, a refuge, quiet and yet strong, small and yet valuable, a highly treasurable piece of beautiful earth.

 

Notes from a Day in the Hills

Having only climbed one of the North Western Fells in the Lake District (Cat Bells - same as almost everyone else) I thought it was time to try out a few more. It was a typical day in the Lakes - cloudy, darkening during the morning, mist settling at about 400 metres and chilly wind on the tops; everyone putting on their coats and hats. Then suddenly changing at 2pm with a bit of sunshine and the temperature rising about 5 degrees in as many minutes and everyone de-layering again. Not that I saw too many people for most of the day.

I started with a sharp ascent up Barf (possibly the best named Fell in the Lake District, or maybe the country). It must be one of the steepest climbs going, although it was pleasant enough in the woods. At the top I found an England flag wedged among the stones, so apparently the hill has been claimed for Queen and Country (I'm not sure if whoever placed it realised they were already in England). Despite the cloudy skies the hills were offering their usual array of colours, to which my camera can do little justice.

 

Once the cloud had descended I had to rely on the map to inform me I was bearing left and not right (which is what it felt like) and that I wasn't just going in circles. I ticked off three more Wainwright peaks before descending out of the wind to a section of dislodged stone wall which made a nice enough place for lunch, although I spent much of it speculating for the umpteenth time when these walls were built, how many people it took and how long it took them, and ultimately, why?

     I was on a particularly steep slope, surrounded by thousands of heavy stones. It was a huge effort to make this wall, and the hundreds of others across the district. Now all that the wall separates is a field of ferns from a field of trees, but I suppose it must have been important at the time. I'm just glad I didn't have to lug all the stones around!

 



I finished the day by climbing Whinlatter, which has very few paths to the top, but a maze of routes on the lower slopes, so many that it was quite difficult to find my way off. It was also odd going from a day of seeing no more than a dozen hikers to suddenly being surrounded by all sorts of adventurous and athletic people zip wiring, mountain biking and long distance running. That's the Lake District for you!

Responsibilities

Responsibility is hard, and the more things you are responsible for the harder life gets. A simple life is one with few responsibilities. Having a house, a car, a family, having influence and power, all these are marks of success in our world, and yet I wonder if the true sign that someone is succeeding in life is how they handle the responsibility of those things. Having been the possessor of a house for almost 10 months now I'm coming to realise how big a responsibility it is and how easily it could get (and for some people clearly has got) away from them, leaving them in much worse situations than they started with.
     Yet, at the same time responsibility is important. Someone with no responsibility is likely to become reckless. This is why young people should be given responsibility, and not just for show, but real tasks that genuinely matter. It increases maturity and wisdom and bring value to life. It also reminds us that we're not as awesome as we sometimes think we are, that we all need help.
     So, take on responsibilities, but gradually, as you are able to meet the demands of each one, and give responsibilities to others, and help others as they need it.

P.T. Barnum - More than a Showman

I have just concluded reading an autobiography of P.T. Barnum, which at the end of the 19th Century had the second most printed copies of any book in North America after the New Testament. Barnum is now commonly known for his circus, or more recently as Hugh Jackman in The Greatest Showman, however, I have learnt that he was so much more than this, indeed, because he wrote this memoir in 1855, at the age of 45, his travelling circus does not even feature (it began when he was 60!) It also doesn't include any of his later political career.
     What it does include is a fascinating history of early 19th Century American life, both rural and urban; the shifting of culture from a generally agricultural society to one of business, enterprise and manufacture; and a study into the successful manipulation of the public to make money from business, showmanship, lotteries, banking, newspapers and many other enterprises.

Barnum was known as the Prince of Humbug, a term referring to the ways in which he presented things as something other than what they were. His ability to advertise successfully, however, induced people to keep coming back to his museums and tours time after time and on the whole it seems they always enjoyed what they saw. Sometimes they even appreciated when they'd been taken in by a hoax.
     This idea of a joke or a prank was birthed in Barnum from a very early age, and much of the first few chapters of the book is devoted to the various pranks he and other people played on each other. Later on he comments, "No doubt my natural bias is to merriment, and I have encouraged my inclination to 'comedy,' because enough of 'tragedy' will force itself upon the attention of every one in spite of his efforts to the contrary."
     Barnum was not only gifted at spotting a good gag, but also a good deal or a good idea. It was this ability that led him to such success in so many different areas, including running newspapers, building new towns, and managing the American tour of the singer Jenny Lind.

Possibly my favourite parts of the book include extracts from his three-year tour of Europe, in which he visited various royal families and other nobility. This insight into the lives and houses of the richest people in London, Paris and other cities is fascinating and there are probably few other accounts like this one. Also while he was in England Barnum managed to arrange for a team of Bell Ringers from Lancashire to tour America, after he had convinced them that they would pretend to be Swiss. Apparently their accents were so strong no one in America would know the difference!

Ultimately, despite his wealth, fame and general success, Barnum was very philosophical and practical and I agree wholeheartedly with him on many of his thoughts. Barnum became a teetotaller and toured America lecturing on temperance and troubles caused by alcohol. He also highly valued 'home and family' seeing them as the "highest and most expressive symbols of the kingdom of heaven."
     He also makes remarks that would not be out of place today. "What a pitiful state of society it is, which elevates a booby or a tyrant to its summit, provided he has more gold than others - while a good heart or a wise head is contemptuously disregarded if their owner happens to be poor! No man can be truly happy who, because he chances to be rich, mounts upon stilts, and attempts to stride over his fellow beings. My sincere prayer is, that I may be reduced to beggary, rather than become a pampered, purse-proud aristocrat."

Although the musical movie The Greatest Showman shows little of all this I think Barnum would have appreciated the joke. Millions of people have turned out to watch a spectacle, only part of which is true and yet went away very happy.
     Barnum was a more remarkable man than I ever realised and his memoir should be read by those interested in looking back, those studying the present and those planning for the future.

A Prologue

In the early 1800s lived a man of considerable wealth. He was a man of strong values and upright, Christian morals and a great dislike of society and what it had become. Such was the basis for this man's decision to attempt to begin a new society founded on those noble values in a land separated from the evils of this world and unburdened by it's confusion of people and ideals. On some distant island he would start afresh, gather a new people, righteous and good, and there set an example for the world to follow. This man was my father. His death on the outbound voyage was perhaps a blessing given what became of our mission, but there, we all see clearer with hindsight.

The beginnings of this dream awoke in my father when he was still young himself, and just setting out in the world, discovering its wonders and flaws. However, it was many years later that he seriously began setting out plans, scouring maps of distant lands and researching the discoveries of other explorers who had made pathways across the seas.
     My family had made money through shipping and trade, both good and bad and so acquiring a vessel to take us to a new land was not a problem. The greater challenge for my father was deciding who would join us in our venture. He wanted people who were skilled in various ways, but more importantly upright and of good character. We also wanted to avoid unwanted attention or publicity. We did not want the world and his wife to attempt to come with us, and so it became our secret. For nearly two years we watched and listened, talking to friends and strangers, and slowly a list was drawn up.
     Because of our careful planning almost all of those whom we asked to join agreed and were enthusiastic about the idea. They too sought a fresh start and a new way of life. A few declined but thankfully kept our voyage secret and so by the time we were ready to set off the reason for our journey and who was going was largely unknown. Even those coming did not know everything or everyone.
     My father's name was James and my mother's name was Verity. Then there was me, aged 12 at the beginning of our journey to the far side of the world, and completing our family was Amelia, known to all as Emmie, and, at 7 years old, the youngest member of our entire gathering. You'll get to know us and all the others as I go on, but I will add that come departure day we were a happy, even giddy, collection people, united by our passion and excitement and nothing, we thought, could possibly thwart our mission.

A little less lonely together

Just putting this out there, I love this generation, this period of world existence. I feel like it gets some bad press and more than it's fair share of negative comments (and I've been critical plenty of times), but I think there's a lot going for it. I enjoy the music, the sport, the technology, the desire for unity, the passion to do something that matters, even if only on a small level, and the commitment to not simply accept things the way they are, especially if they are unfair or just plain wrong.

I wonder though, if this generation (and I don't just mean a certain age group, but anyone and everyone currently alive) feels like we've found a method that works? Because it's clear to me we still have our problems.

Previous generations have battled through population destroying diseases and world wars, and maybe pockets of those still exist, but on the whole we live in a time when we have longer life-expectancy, greater freedom of travel, safety, security and more expendable income than ever before, and yet, do we have what really matters? What people cry out for? Are we "Going home together to forget we're alone" (Sigrid - Strangers), or is it "I might hate myself tomorrow but I'm on my way tonight, let's be lonely together, a little less lonely together" (Avicii & Rita Ora).

The lyrics of the lyricists and the testimony of the tech-heads suggest a desire for something else. A true intimacy? A solid identity? A wholesome purpose? These are things people cry out for - most noticeably young people, but maybe that's because you become less vocal with age. And the question is, have we found solutions for these problems - solutions that actually work? Or have our solutions left us further apart and more passionate for personal gain?

I love who we are and what we've done up to this point, but I have hopes for even better. I just don't know if we can get there by ourselves. And that poses more questions.