A breathtaking journey. Alongside Captain FitzRoy and a crew of mostly young men, they travelled from England to South America, to Tierra del Fuego, onwards to the Galapagos Islands, making a stop in Sydney, Australia to finally, after half a decade, make it back to England with unparalleled tales of natural wonder.
I was struck by Darwin's strength of character. Although he eventually published (arguably) the most famous scientific treatise of all time, his personal moral struggle against the church & monotheism took a toll on him. He lived to his 70s - mostly in ill-health - but nonetheless wrote and endlessly observed the natural realm. The painful death of his 10-year old daughter Annie marked him greatly, and he devoted himself to his work to cope with the suffering.
I believe there is refuge from suffering in the natural realm. Too often we end up closed up in boxes of grey matter; of concrete and brain cells. Darwin arduously tried to show the world that we are not above nature; that we are part of the "coral of life" and that we all have a common ancestor, somewhere in time.
What a beautiful story. Definitely one of my favourite documentaries now.
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Here's a picture I took in Enora, ON over the weekend. It's a cute, touristy town about an hour's drive west of Toronto. There's a zipline nearby, but I calculated that it costs almost 3 dollars a second soooooo I didn't think it was worth it.
1 comment:
You can probably find it online fairly easily, but I chose the old-fashioned route and borrowed a DVD from the library.
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