This is a note to self, a journal of sorts. You might find it relevant too…
Did you know that eminent scholars of the 17th century postulated that birds transformed into inanimate objects like sticks, turned into other kinds of birds, or even flew to the moon? This theory, apparently, was more appealing and believable than the idea that the birds embark on long-distance migrations. Let this thought sink in for a moment, that the smartest people in the world were convinced that birds transformed into other creatures, or in some cases, left the planet completely, but couldn’t contemplate the idea that they flew across the world in seasonal migrations.
It took a stork impaled with a spear that miraculously survived and continued on its sojourn from Africa to Europe to provide the proof and ignite the thought of seasonal bird migration. This, of course, is something we take for granted today. The concept of intercontinental animal migration has been well studied and documented, and while it is still mindblowing, few would think of it as impossible. But it wasn't always so.
A few years ago, during the pandemic, we made jokes about how we – the public – had to be taught basic hand-washing etiquette. The idea that we had to be reminded to wash our hands to curb the spread of viruses is laughable because it's just common sense. But it wasn't always common sense. We only have to go back to the 19th century to see that when the Hungarian scientist Ignaz Semmelweis proposed that doctors should wash their hands to reduce patient mortality, he was effectively cancelled. He suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an asylum where he was beaten by guards and died shortly after. It was too ridiculous an idea to fathom, partly because germ theory wasn't a thing yet.
As the story goes, Ignaz Semmelweis observed that the mortality rate of new mothers in doctors' maternity wards was three times higher than the mortality rate of new mothers in the midwives' wards. This was a really dark time in medical history when a lot of women died in childbirth or shortly after, owing to what they referred to as childbed fever. Our Hungarian protagonist theorised that there must have been some invisible agents that were potent enough to contribute to these deaths, and he believed that these invisible agents were transferred from the deceased bodies that the doctors dealt with to the maternity wards where the hapless mothers and babies were. In contrast, the midwives were in no position to transfer these invisible agents because they primarily only operated in the maternity wards and had no contact with the sick and dying.
Again, now this is just common sense, and it has been ever since the French chemist, Louis Pasteur (who we also have to thank for milk pasteurisation, hence the name of the technique) confirmed germ theory in 1861. Still, I implore you to put yourself in the shoes of a 19th-century physician before germ theory gained traction. It's easy to deride the medical practitioners of the day for their limited knowledge of what we consider basic biology today because we have the benefit of hindsight, but back then, this idea would have sounded absurd and would have required substantial proof to quell all reasonable doubt.
Do you see where I'm going with this? I'll spell it out anyway. There's no shortage of previous ideas, beliefs and practices we look back on today and deride, mock and scoff at. We cringe at the thought of people lacing their beauty products with arsenic, or their wall paints with lead, or their ceiling panels with asbestos. But do we take enough time to reflect on what future generations would mock us for? Do we stop to consider what ideas, practices or beliefs of ours would be ridiculed, jettisoned or debunked a few decades from now? I'd like to suggest that the answer is no, we don't, and it follows that this practice is sorely lacking in our society.
I think about this a lot in the context of art and everyday life. What do we consider true today that will be revealed as false in the near or distant future? What do we hold sacrosanct in our society today that future generations would consider banal? What ideas do we hold as authentic and original that would be considered trite and hackneyed in the future? I don’t have answers to these questions, and you probably don’t either, but it doesn’t mean they’re not worth asking. If anything, we should ask these questions all the more, and engage in constructive conversations that just might lead us to viable answers. I hold this view because the thought that we could be living our lives based on flawed, incomplete or perhaps even nonsensical logic and practices is too painful to bear. It reminds me of the popular saying, often attributed to Mark Twain, that “...it ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” So, if I may leave you with one last thought, it's that hindsight is 20/20 and obvious isn't always so.
PS: Just a reminder that my latest record, One More Time is out now, everywhere. You can listen to it on several platforms. Please share it with a friend, share it with your social networks, and consider subscribing to the newsletter (below), my YouTube channel, or wherever else you listen to music.