Well, did you evah?

I am currently living in the ‘inbetween’ times; waiting for one thing to finish and another to begin. I’m not even remotely any good at patience– shades of a bird carooming around a cage, let me out, let me out. “In returning and rest shall you be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength”— waiting to exhale.

So, how to get through inbetween times? Polynomial equations. Truly, I cannot overstate the therapeutic properties of mathematics, particularly algebra and calculus. There is something about the order in maths that is a great pacifier. 1 + 1 always equals 2 ( except of course in theology where 1+1+1= 1; just thought I’d mess with your heads a bit…). In addition, I’m reading Kate Atkinson at the moment- she is an astonishingly pellucid writer. I actually find myself stopping mid-sentence to marvel at her talent. Extraordinary.

Anyway, I was thinking about progress and innovation, and it made me wonder about how elemental discoveries are made. Not scientific discoveries but the ones which seem to be as old as civilisation. Who came up with the idea of a plough, or an aqueduct? Who was brave/stupid/crazy enough to try the first caper, the first chilli, the first parachute (first patent by Slovakian Stefan Banic. He tested it by jumping off a tower block in DC. Excellent.  🙂 ) Who was the first to discover that slapping a piece of willow bark on your forehead would cure your headache, who built the first compacted mud houses, who discovered how to make brass and bronze and wrought iron? Human beings are amazing. I recently heard that Sicilian fishermen will mutter a few phrases in Greek when they start fishing in a bid to confuse the fish. They hope to lull the fish into believing they were the much less competent Greek fishermen (according to the unbiased Italians!), thereby ensuring a bumper catch. I am certain the Greeks have their own riposte to this terrible slur 🙂 I’m not advocating Leave or Remain but I would mention that there are very few jokes in Esperanto…..See you on the other side.

(Photos: Ife head bronzes: Kano, Nigeria: Ploughing with horses: Roman aqueduct at Segovia; Capers; Willow bark)

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