Around The World In Eighty Days

This is going to be one of those weird posts where I talk about everything at once.

Talking to newly colleague newly returned from her PhD reminded me of something I'd very nearly forgotten about. As she urged us younger members of staff to pursue our doctorates overseas, she overcame a few objections from some other colleagues about the difficulties of leaving spouses (or is it spice?) and children behind with a simple little statement:

"Well, in the old days every other explorer/scholar would leave home for months, maybe years with no way to bring their families for the simple reason that they love knowledge.."

And she went on talking about Ibn Battutta and several other well known Muslim scholars. Thinking about it now, I have to admit what she said made a lot of sense. I remember growing up reading stories of explorers and adventurers and scholars of every colour, type and creed, and how they left behind their secure homes and risked everything in that pursuit of enlightenment (related reading: Neal Stephenson's Necronomicon). They didn't have airplanes, internet access or anything of the sort, and letters if any would take months to reach their homes. But somehow they persevered, and it's almost darkly funny how in the age of fast airliners and mobile phones with global roaming and e-mail some of us still shirk from leaving our families behind, even for a little while. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating anyone to just up and leave (this before anyone thinks I'm all for breaking up families) but think about it. Would it be so bad if a postgraduate candidate had to leave first before shifting his/her whole family along? This got me wandering: what exactly makes it more difficult for us to do the same in this day and age?

Is it because there are so many more risks abroad than in the old days? Does it have anything to do with the amount of trust we can invest in someone? Or are we just less passionate about knowledge and just go because we have to?

Deep questions for late on a Thursday night. I know of at least 2 people who are married or in a relationship and one spouse/partner has to leave for his/her studies. As of the time of writing, they're holding on even through the difficulties, and to these people I tip my hat. I'll never know what I would do until forced into the same quandary, but that talk with my officemate has certainly opened my mind up a bit.

So it boils down to the question: what would we do to satiate our thirst for knowledge? Ultimately it is up to us to see if we can uphold the proud traditions left to us by those intrepid explorers, and seekers of truth. Heck, personally I'd be happy if I were one-fifth as noble as they were.