{"id":5512,"date":"2022-06-01T02:08:50","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T02:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=5512"},"modified":"2022-07-01T01:26:50","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T01:26:50","slug":"dinosaurs-and-contemplation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/01\/dinosaurs-and-contemplation\/","title":{"rendered":"Dinosaurs and Contemplation"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Dinosaurs and Contemplation<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Children\u2019s love of prehistory is more meaningful than we tend to think.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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By Collin Slowey<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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It\u2019s not unusual for little boys to go through a dinosaur phase. But I\u2019ve been told it is unusual for eight-year-olds to construct accurately scaled geologic timelines out of toys, yarn, and objects retrieved from the back yard. That was me as a child.<\/p>

Since almost as far back as I can remember, I was a full-on dinosaur kid. I spent countless hours poring over encyclopedic texts, gazing at scientific illustrations, and watching BBC docuseries about the prehistoric world. If there were ever a dull moment, I would draw tyrannosaurs and mastodons on the nearest available sheet of paper, be it a piece of loose-leaf or a pew card at church. And when they wanted to treat me, my parents drove me two-and-a-half hours so we could visit the hallowed halls of the Houston Natural History Museum.<\/p>

I had other interests, of course. I liked to read Tintin and Asterix & Obelix. I enjoyed bike-riding around my neighborhood. I generally had fun at school. But most of my fads came and went, while my obsession with dinosaurs and all things antediluvian remained. In the end, I only learned to mask it, not to truly move on. I confess that the sight of a fossil still puts a smile on my face, and I to this day I can list off the periods of the Paleozoic era by heart.<\/p>

As an adult, I have wondered what it was about the prehistoric world that captured my imagination so completely. Exactly why dinosaurs are so attractive to a certain kind of child is a mystery, the conventional explanations for which remain dissatisfying.<\/p>

The paleontologist Robert T. Bakker said children love dinosaurs because \u201cdinosaurs are nature\u2019s Special Effects.\u201d Certainly there\u2019s something about spectacle that appeals to the young mind. Superheroes, dragons, and dinosaurs are all birds of a feather in that regard. Nevertheless, when I look back at my own fascination with the deep past, I can\u2019t help feeling there was more to it than that. I enjoyed spectacle as much as the next kid, but while monster movies and Spiderman comics proved entertaining, they never inspired the semi-religious awe that a pterosaur skeleton or a sauropod footprint could engender. Moreover, it wasn\u2019t just the big, scary, or weird dinosaurs that appealed to me. I was as fascinated by the lowly herbivore as I was by the most voracious predator, and I insisted on following the latest science, even if that research brought down a species\u2019 cool factor.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The world of the dinosaurs captivated me precisely because it was simultaneously real and unlike anything I could ever experience in my lifetime.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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I would argue that my childhood love of prehistory had more in common with a music-lover’s appreciation of Mozart or a philosopher\u2019s affection for a Socratic dialogue than the average boy\u2019s love of special effects. Great works of art and thought like Ein Kleine Nachtmusik <\/em>and Plato\u2019s Republic<\/em> are considered valuable insofar as they are intrinsically meaningful, lenses through which a person might contemplate goodness, truth, and beauty. The contemplation of nature can be just as valuable in its own distinctive way. For me, the sight of a Cretaceous landscape, even if only accessible through the imagination, had intrinsic meaning.<\/p>

This is not an uncontroversial stance. Some conservative Christians insist that nature receives its value from human cultivation, and that it is only appreciable within the context of civilization. For instance, G. K. Chesterton says in The Man Who Was Thursday <\/em>that “the moon is only poetical because there is a man in the moon.\u201d Likewise, in “The Body and the Earth,\u201d Wendell Berry dismisses \u201cthe implication of a dehumanized interest in nature \u2018for its own sake.\u2019\u201d<\/p>

It may be true that humanity\u2019s ultimate posture toward nature must be one of stewardship, not detached observation. Nevertheless, many men and women throughout history have cared for nature in its wild, uncultivated state, \u201cfor its own sake.\u201d They have pursued, as Barry Lopez describes it in Arctic Dreams<\/em>, \u201ca more particularized understanding of the land itself \u2026 as if it were, itself, another sort of civilization.\u201d This attitude, that of the naturalist, indicates a genuine, sincere affection. That affection needs accounting for.<\/p>

How much more is this true of a little boy\u2019s love of natural history? When I look back at my own dinosaur craze, I recognize that part of the appeal of the prehistoric world\u2014as opposed to nature in its extant state\u2014was its foreignness, its near-total separation from the domain of Homo sapiens<\/em>. My obsession with trilobites, saber-tooths, and megalodons was what Berry might call a \u201cdehumanized\u201d one. The world of the dinosaurs captivated me precisely because it was simultaneously real and unlike anything I could ever experience in my lifetime. Its \u201cotherness\u201d made it an object of interest and a source of comfort.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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I’ve found a kindred spirit in Ted Hughes, one of the foremost nature poets of the twentieth century, who was fascinated by animals and featured them prominently in his poetry.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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As a child, I often felt isolated by these emotions; my family and peers did not appear to share them. As an adult, I have found a kindred spirit in Ted Hughes, one of the most singular nature poets of the twentieth century. Hughes was fascinated by animals and featured them so prominently in his poetry because they are \u201csimply things which have a vivid life of their own, outside mine.\u201d Animals, according to Hughes, \u201cseem quite separate from any person, \u2026 and nothing can be added to them or taken away without maiming and perhaps killing them.\u201d<\/p>

“The Horses\u201d is Hughes\u2019s definitive illustration of the independence of nature and its consequent beauty. In this surreal, mysterious poem, the speaker describes his early-morning encounter with a group of wild horses:<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Huge in the dense grey\u2013\u2013ten together\u2013\u2013
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Megalith-still. They breathed, making no move,<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 With draped manes and tilted hind-hooves,
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Making no sound.<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I passed: not one snorted or jerked its head.
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Grey silent fragments<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Of a grey silent world.<\/p>

Unaffected by the speaker\u2019s presence and undisturbed by the vicissitudes of the English weather, the horses are an icon of animals\u2019 opacity and fundamental wildness. And their intrinsic quality and beauty inspire awe and wonder. The speaker stores the memory of what he has seen and prays:<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 In din of the crowded streets, going among the years, the faces,
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 May I still meet my memory in so lonely a place<\/p>

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Between the streams and the red clouds, hearing curlews,
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Hearing the horizons endure.<\/p>

Hughes characterizes the image of horses in a wild field as that brings comfort and strength, like Yeats\u2019s idealized homestead on Innisfree. This might be baffling to some, for the landscape portrayed in \u201cThe Horses\u201d is cold, harsh, admittedly \u201clonely.\u201d But it’s a characterization that my childhood self would have understood.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The world of the dinosaurs can be a beautiful escape from the burdens of egotistic self-consciousness.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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What is moving and reassuring about nature\u2019s \u201cotherness?\u201d One possibility is that because animals, plants, and their environments exist independently of humans and their decisions, contemplation of them offers relief from the burden of self-consciousness and intentionality. The ability to reason and reflect on one\u2019s own behavior is a great gift; it is what makes us human. But it can also be exhausting. Like my parents and my older siblings, I was an introverted, introspective child. Perhaps it was an escape from my tendency toward self-absorption that made losing myself in natural history so attractive.<\/p>

That escape is ultimately part and parcel of all contemplation. To contemplate something, be it a flower, a piece of art, or a loved one, is to allow that other being to fill all the mind and senses. By necessity, this involves a kenosis in which the ego (if not the self in its entirety) is temporarily sacrificed, to be replaced by the object of contemplation. For fallen men and women, the ego\u2019s dominance of day-to-day consciousness can be a source of great anxiety and unhappiness. By taking our inward-facing gaze and reorienting it outward, howsoever fleetingly, we approximate the prelapsarian condition. Moments of contemplation are therefore extremely valuable, and as Hughes pronounces, worth capturing in memory.<\/p>

I\u2019m convinced that children\u2019s love of prehistory, at least the kind I experienced as a boy, is more meaningful than we tend to think. Dinosaurs may be \u201cnature\u2019s Special Effects,\u201d but mere spectacle is not the only reason for their fascination of the youthful mind. Rather, children love prehistory because it is both fully real and fully \u201cother.\u201d Separated from the realm of human agency by millions of years, it is an ideal object of contemplation.<\/p>

For children with naturalistic leanings, the world of the dinosaurs can be what the rural English wilderness was for Ted Hughes: a beautiful escape from the burdens of egotistic self-consciousness. It is a \u201clonely place\u201d where one can listen to \u201cthe horizons endure,\u201d even amidst the psychological and spiritual demands of the fallen world. That is something profoundly worthwhile. If some of us adults have become so preoccupied with work, routine, and responsibilities that we no longer see the value in contemplating prehistory, it is our loss. Such people would do well to visit the nearest museum and spend some time with a dinosaur fossil. With luck, they might recover their faculty of prelapsarian wonder.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Collin<\/span>\u00a0Slowey<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0is a writer living in Washington, D.C. He hails from Bryan, Texas and holds a degree from Baylor University, where he studied Political Science, Great Texts, and Film.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Children\u2019s love of prehistory is more meaningful than we tend to think. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":5532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays","category-issue-19","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farefwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/1024px-Wessex_Formation_dinosaurs.jpeg?fit=1024%2C668&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5512"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5874,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5512\/revisions\/5874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5532"}],"wp:atta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