Endurance

https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/shackleton/the-expedition

Apparently some explorers from the Falklands have recently found the wreck of the “Endurance” somewhere on the Antarctc seafloor. It was Shackleton’s failed expedition intending to cross the Antarctic on dogsleds, which ended up marooned in the ice surrounding the continent.

I remember once reading Jules Verne’s “Mysterious Island”, and remarking that it was the “anti-Lord-of-the-Flies” – the contrast in the picture of what men are asserted to be, and what their potential is, was stark.

This struck me in a very similar way. And it must be men like these that served as the inspiration for that brighter idea of human potential. It’s an interesting tale: Here you have people in lethal dire straights, and they behave rationally, gallantly, and honorably. They save themselves by extreme competence and self control. There is good faith and good will by everyone involved.

It’s a bit of an antidote to the present.

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