Published on 12, July, 2020
What is your specialist subject, the thing that makes you feel happiest and eager learning about? That makes life feel better?
I think mine mine is Ancient Civilizations. I’m listening to lots of different Books on Audible. Lots of Great Courses, which are amazing, as they are university level lectures presented by doctors who are absolutely passionate about their subjects. I’m listening to one about Mesoamerica another about Native Americans and an audio book about Ancient African Kingdoms. No one I know cares about any of these though. Nobody ever talks to me about their academic passions. I have no clue if I’m on any spectrum but all the people I have known in the past who said they had Asperger’s were much more cerebral than the average person.
Natural history and history. My first obsessions were big cats and (after reading Treasure Island) pirates. The two interests of animals/biology and history have proceeded in tandem through my life. As I could see more opportunities in biology than history (I never wanted to teach) as a potential career, that is the way I went.
Which era in history interests you most?
I was listening about the Aztecs last night at my driving job and apparently they had a zoo in their city. In the 14th century I think it was, before anywhere in Europe did. They had a big cat room that was quite creepy because it was decorated in idols and the cats were fed parts of the sacrifices. One of the Spanish invaders wrote that it was like seeing hell.
It’s so interesting that you say that Biology and History have been your passions that have remained with you through life. I love the way our personalities work this way. That we are so unique in our combination of interests. I think that my passions all link through my ceramics. So because clay is out of the ground I love Geology and Archaeology and ancient civilizations. I think at the heart of my personality is an earthiness. As I’m getting older it’s getting more powerful. Like wanting to be outside. I love how the personality is like an engineered machine and all the parts work like clockwork. The brain sitting inside a car that it drives through life. Our interests the shell to protect us from the chaos of the world.
I tend to latch on to a particular topic and I slide into something connected to it. My passion for pirates led me to read the C S Forrester 'Hornblower' books, then to an obsession with Horatio Nelson, and finally to an interest in the Napoleonic period in general. My big interests in history are Napoleonic, Late Roman and Byzantine and 'Dark Age' Britain. I wrote 6 articles on Napoleonic cavalry, 3 online and 3 in print journals, one of them won a prize.
Gosh the Byzantine empire sounds intriguing. Thank you so much for describing it to me. You should be a teacher. I even love the word. I love Etymology. Just looked it up and it said it’s Latin. Latin is a very interesting language. I love the vocabulary of medicine because of all of the Greek and Latin words. I just read that Constantinople is now Istanbul. I remember seeing a BBC series where they went underground in cities that was about Istanbul. It was absolutely stunning. I think Islamic architecture is so interesting. I had no idea that the Roman’s had Egypt!?.
The dark ages in Britain sounds fascinating too. I wonder why nothing was written?. Gosh with the birth of English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish nationalities being born I’m intrigued to know what that looked like. I love accents. Was shocked to discover I’m welsh. None of my family knew they were either.
Amazing to hear about your grandfather. My nan told me a lot about her life but my grandma died when I was 8. What I find fascinating is that I don’t think my mom or aunties asked her about her life. I’m sad about that I’d love to know what t was like. She was born in 1901. Her daughter my nan used to look after me a lot when my mom was working though so she’d tell me about her life. I think I mentioned this in another comment but my nan grew up surrounded by horses. Traveling on her dad’s horse and cart. She’d tell me how it would take a day to travel somewhere. Apparently her dad was a coal merchant why he had the horse and cart and committed suicide when cars were invented because he refused to get rid of his horses.