Afterthought: The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt by Andrea Wulf

With clear and illustrative words, author took one to travel with Humboldt, through his pains and agony, his worries and disagreements, and most importantly, his adventures. One was fascinated by adventurous writing, for it took one through the mountains and valleys, and somehow, one just enjoyed it. Seriously, whether the account written is accurate or slightly inaccurate isn't of the utmost importance. We humans only have so much time on Earth, and being enjoyable when we can, doing the things we like to do, is what one can guarantee. The author did a great job at that.

Humboldt, an adventurous person, yet being able to sit down and wrote books, that's fascinating. That encouraged one to learn from his patience, and write a book oneself. One didn't write anything in active language before; even this book of Humboldt's adventure is written in a passive language. (By passive, one means from a third person point of view, while active means imagining you're one of the protagonist or you're a non-interactive protagonist that passively travel with those characters). So, reading this book actually let me start writing a book on Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Translating a video into a book is much easier than writing a book yourself, right? Though one call oneself a "writer" than an "author" in that case, and claim no credits on its content than on its "translation". We'll see how that goes.

One used to read Marcus Aurelius, and one thing he said was utmostly true. No matter how popular you are at the moment, when "you are" became "you were", people no longer remembers you. The only reason we remember Christopher Columbus and Isaac Newton is we studied them in school. The reason we studied them in school is because our world currently is dominated by science. If in the future, say, science was replaced by something else, like how science greatly replaced most of religion in today's world, we wonder if we can still remember these names.

Even in the short period after your death, you'll still be remembered, how long can you ensure people will remember you, when everybody had their own problems to worry about? Even our ancestors -- we most probably only remembers up to whoever lived through our child age, mostly our grandparents but for some, none, and others, great-grandparents. If they passed away, how many generations still help them clean their graves before they were undisturbed forever, except accompanied by nature? On his 100th birthday, he was celebrated all around the world. On his 200th, no one came, for people forgot about him already, plus he's German, which means the two world wars wrecked havoc on his reputation after his death.

It also showed how unimportant reputations are. Ernst Haeckel had understood it earlier. We should too. Which unfortunately Humboldt didn't. He had been "controlled" by reputations that he had pleaded publishers and others, or hated some translators that might destroyed his reputation. It doesn't matter now, for you probably wouldn't have heard him. Popular guy in the past like Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor, wouldn't even be known if you don't touch on Roman Empire's history or Stoicism, which he's known for. One was introduced to him via Stoicism; and you, have you even heard of him?

Neither do one heard of Humboldt before reading this book, despite being a science-y person. The author incorporated people whom had been influenced by his thoughts, like John Muir and George Perkins Marsh and Charles Darwin. Honestly, one probably only knew more about Charles Darwin, and the others either one never heard before, or just heard his/her name, like Henry David Thoreau, but never read what he wrote nor didn't know what his occupation was except that other think he's famous when one don't think so. Author's diversion into these people and took us into a short one-chapter adventure through these person's life, one think, is amazing. After all, while the skeleton of the book is termed Humboldt, the actual title is "The Invention of Nature"; so if you'd expect it being his autobiography, you're only half correct. Author introduced about his disciples for how his thoughts influenced them.

That probably includes oneself. One could never stand the narrowness of getting into a single discipline; envisioning oneself as more a generalist, a jack of some trades, and a master of none. The bringing of a solution from some other discipline to fix a problem in the discipline one met, is what one can do; though, without statistics, one can't say whether one do it better than others or worse, so that'll have to leave it for another day. It couldn't be too shallow, for one need to learn as much as one could in a single discipline until all the basics and, in the narrower fields where one love, to an intermediate level, typically via experimentation. Humboldt's lab is the nature, not in the room. One would wish so too; though wish is just wish until they come true.

One day.

Lastly, this book now introduces one to read more about Humboldt's Personal Narratives, first 2 volumes of Cosmos, Charles Darwin's The Voyage on Beagle (not his popular Origin on Species, though, which one hadn't read and hadn't plan on reading yet in the viewable future), and perhaps Man and Nature (which will have to see if it arouse one's interest or not). Now, that's a lot of books to cover. As far as one hope one could split into multiple brains and squash everything as quickly as possible, one isn't a computer processor, so that'll have to digest slowly by slowly.

And in this complicated and complex world, perhaps it's time to remember him again, for his polymath, to solve the world's problems.

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First published on wabinab.github.io.