Opportunity Abounds, part one

Today was, as you might expect, a Tuesday much like any other. I awoke swaddled in coarse wool and broken pottery and performed my morning rituals (which one day I will describe, but for now they are not germane to the story). I forced my way out of the copse of trees where the time currents had deposited me and with all the force of my lungs drank in a day where blue air and yellow-white sun reigned over the sky in peaceful yet powerful harmony.

There is nothing to compare quite with an atmosphere unstained by smog; if nothing else recommends the regular practice of time travel, let the happiness of your alveoli be its most strident advocate. Undiluted oxygen reddens the blood and enlivens the limbs, and a healthy body is the best throne for a healthy mind and spirit.  I can survive anywhere, mind you, but some situations are more enjoyable than others.

A nearby spring ringed about with bits of marble was an ideal spot for some ablutions, and thence I made my way to to a gaily colored, shining port city, which I recognized as Alexandria from my many sojourns to its fabled library. (Though I had never come upon it from this angle before.) It’s a fun town; if you’re ever in need of a good conversation there are no end of them to be found in every street. Along with the occasional prostitute, but I digress.

I was treated to a doozy of an ear-bender this time around. I stopped for breakfast–the sausage in ancient Alexandria is worth the trip if you’re not into books–and was joined by a fellow named Heron. An engineer of some sort from what I gathered. He was quite excited about a set of hydraulic doors he had just invented, and the way his exposition set his beard to waving provided a cross breeze in the close quarters of the agora where we sat. That, of course, was a secondary benefit (though a benefit nonetheless and I hasten to express my gratitude) to the intellectual nourishment.

A well-balanced breakfast, I always say, consists of meat, dairy, vegetable, starch, and mental stimulation. Begin a day with this kind of fuel and there’s nothing you cannot accomplish eventually.

Having taken my pleasant leave of Heron, I ambled to the port to have another look at the lighthouse. No matter how many times I witness this miraculous blend of art, architecture, and practical application, it never ceases to inspire. Consider: you need to accomplish something mundane, like keeping ships from running aground, spilling cargo and men uselessly into the sea–and where are you going to get more of those at this time of night, is what I’d like to know–not to mention preventing the loss of a terribly expensive boat (which don’t grow on trees, now do they?). Sure, you could just bung up a pile of rocks with a watchfire or something on the top. Or, you could have a team of sculptors and bronzeworkers craft you a muscular colossus holding aloft a pan of Eternal Flame.

Now that’s style. That’s not just a polite caution, that’s a bloody statement, about you, your local government, and your commitment to ideals. That’s a thing that Robert Pirsig would have been proud of. I try to make the Alexandrian Lighthouse a beacon for my own endeavors: no matter how practical the end result is intended to be, there is certainly no harm, and arguably much benefit, in making the thing impressive. Aesthetics and emotions need not be neglected in the pursuit of practicality.

In the port beyond the Colossus I spied a yacht from the early 20th Century. It was stopping through for supplies on its way to the Polynesian Islands. The ship had been purchased, and the expedition mounted, to end a long-standing argument between two friends–an Anglican minister and an atheist–over whether or not the adoption of Western civilizational trappings were beneficial or harmful to the native Islanders.

Now I know this is the sort of thing that Just Isn’t Done Today, and with good reason. However, it is a mistake to constantly judge the past by the moral measures of the present. Or the future, but that’s beside the point. These folk were the product of their own sociotemporal climate, and it’s just as futile to take issue with that as it is to take issue with the shape of an asparagus.

That being said, I hope you will understand when I say I was absolutely enthralled by the sheer, ludicrous extravagance of it all. To expend such time, effort, and financial security literally for the sake of argument is something so unique to the Proper English Gentleman of the late Nineteenth/early Twentieth centuries, something so much more definitive than tea and crumpets, that I cannot help but adore it. I asked the principals of the expedition if I could tag along, and as I was welcomed by their faithful Spaniel, my presence was accepted with good humo(u)r.