Sometimes I wish I lived in the medieval era, if only so that I wouldn't have to bother so much with personal grooming concerns. I mean come on, there are more important things to worry about than whether my eyelashes are curled or various body parts are plucked and waxed. What am I, a chicken? Back then few people bathed or bothered, or even considered their own bodies as much as we do. Everyone was pretty much in the same boat priority-wise: trying to stay alive. No worries if your hair looks greasy or unkempt! You survived past childhood! Of course, I'd also have to contend with disease, plague, lack of clean food or water, misogyny, extremely curtailed liberty...so maybe this century does have its perks.
I would still love to visit a medieval castle to see how everything operated, or wander around Elizabethan London for a day. But then I'd probably be burned at the stake for being an independent female.* If I opened my mouth: heresy! They tend to romanticize it in the movies, but it would be great to see a time-travel film or book that dealt with: culture shock, having to learn a different language or dialect, alienation, becoming a starving, outcast beggar and dying miserably of hypothermia (complicated by gangrenous frostbite and malnutrition)...you know, reality. None of this warmly-welcomed, false-backstory-easily-accepted, falling-in-love stuff.
I just thought I would point this out because our problems may be different then and now, but travel (time or otherwise) doesn't erase them, it just changes them. We all live better than kings did in the medieval era - the array of foods and goods and health and cleanliness we can afford is astounding. Thankfully, we also live in a world where you won't be burned at the stake for expressing your opinion. (Most of the time.) But there are still problems that demand our attention. Most of us in the world today don't have to worry about where our next meal is coming from, whether the lord of the manor is going to take all our crops, or whether two-thirds of our seventeen children will die before the age of 12. So where should we channel that energy instead? Making sure our eyebrows are perfectly plucked? Or seeing that people are fed and sheltered and heard and validated? I lean towards the latter. Of course we need to have our basic needs and desires met before we can tend to others, or study, create, invent, and so on. And necessities may look different for different people. As long as we're living, breathing, and being ourselves, we can't go too far wrong.
Right?
Love,
Annie
*Not an actual/stated reason for burning a woman at the stake, but you know, approximately.
I just thought I would point this out because our problems may be different then and now, but travel (time or otherwise) doesn't erase them, it just changes them. We all live better than kings did in the medieval era - the array of foods and goods and health and cleanliness we can afford is astounding. Thankfully, we also live in a world where you won't be burned at the stake for expressing your opinion. (Most of the time.) But there are still problems that demand our attention. Most of us in the world today don't have to worry about where our next meal is coming from, whether the lord of the manor is going to take all our crops, or whether two-thirds of our seventeen children will die before the age of 12. So where should we channel that energy instead? Making sure our eyebrows are perfectly plucked? Or seeing that people are fed and sheltered and heard and validated? I lean towards the latter. Of course we need to have our basic needs and desires met before we can tend to others, or study, create, invent, and so on. And necessities may look different for different people. As long as we're living, breathing, and being ourselves, we can't go too far wrong.
Right?
Love,
Annie
*Not an actual/stated reason for burning a woman at the stake, but you know, approximately.