It's All About Perspective

1.2 miles. That’s how far I lived from America’s First Wave Pool (full disclosure: it’s slightly disputed with some other place). One point two miles. Google Maps says that would take 23 minutes to walk. For the first 13 years of my life I lived 23 minutes (walking distance) away from a water park. When you factor in that I used to ride my bike EVERYWHERE, including the rest of the recreation center around the Point Mallard Water Park, the time it would take to get there would quickly diminish.

Do you know that in my entire life, not just the 13 years I lived in that house, I have only been to Point Mallard three times? They are as follows:

1. One of the last days of Kindergarten our teachers walked us to Point Mallard. From the school it was only a 0.8-mile journey. Google Maps says it takes 16 minutes to walk that, but let’s be honest, there’s no way a flock of kindergartners with their tiny, wobbly legs made it that distance in 16 minutes. At 25, I’m still surprised they would walk about three-dozen kids on the roads through a small forest to a water park! Of course we were only allowed in the kiddy pool. No water slides or Olympic pool swims and certainly no Wave Pool!
    
2. Going into fifth grade a friend invited me to go with him and his mother to Point Mallard one summer afternoon. This is the famous incident when I truly learned how pale I was. Without my loving mother reminding me to put on sunscreen, I got roasted and was miserable for about two days. My back was so blistered and itchy that I could barely sleep. I’ll never forget that my mom put me in the car and just drove around the city because that was the only way I could fall asleep. That’s love right there! I still greatly fear sunburns because of this one incident. I was truly miserable.  
    
3. The last time my presence graced Point Mallard was during middle school. I was in a summer band camp…. in middle school…. I didn’t want to be at it, but somehow I got signed up for it *cough* mom and dad *cough*. The band camp lasted a week, or maybe half a week. Each morning we practiced and every afternoon we went somewhere fun. One day they took us to Point Mallard Water Park for that afternoon’s activity.

And those are my three experiences. Why didn’t I go any other times you ask? I don’t know. It sounds like a cool place. I mean it’s no Disney World, but for North Alabama and for being within a quick drive from my house you would think I would have gone plenty of other times.

I found that we all suffer from this same issue no matter where we live. For my Harding friends, let me tell you this: I never went to Heber Springs. Let that sink in. Anyway, at the time of writing this, I’ve been up on the Acropolis of Athens to see the Parthenon a little over 20 times. That’s just been in the past seven years and the large bulk of those come from the last four years. In America, I live less than two hours from the Parthenon replica in Nashville, Tennessee and I finally saw it after I visited the real Parthenon in Greece three times! Does that make any sense?! 

I’m always surprised when I learn that many of my local Greek friends have never been to the sites I go to three times a year. Or if they’ve visited these places it was once, years ago. Many of them have only been on the Acropolis once or twice and more often than not it was when they were students.

Now I don’t think they are wrong for not going up there more often. I understand that I am the exception. Unless you are a tour guide, archaeologist or work at some random job (like me) you have no reason to pay 12 euros to go up to the Parthenon more than once every couple of decades. Even though I know this, it still surprises me. I guess it’s all about perspective.

Almost a month ago I had the day free. The group was on their way home from ancient Olympia. They wouldn’t arrive until almost 7:00 that night. I slept in a little and then jumped in the car to drive to ancient Elefsina. I’ve known about ancient Elefsina for years, even before I moved to Greece. It was home to the most famous mystery cult in ancient Greece. I’ve never been very proactive about going because I figured I’d have heard more about it by now. My assumption was that the site was going to basically be a sandbox. After nearly four years I’ve seen all the really big stuff in Greece, right?

I was wrong. Elefsina was massive! It had multiple layers to explore. Giant walls almost two stories high wrapped much of the site’s citadel. You could take paths down into deep cisterns that provided the city with water. Columns and foundations were left from many temples and propylaeum. This site was no sandbox!

The ruins were surrounded by a field and fenced in to protect it from the modern city that was begging to grow and spill over the fences. In fact, as I walked next to the massive ancient walls I was a mere 15 feet from the site fence. On the immediate other side of the fence was a narrow street. On the other side of the street was a building with a restaurant on the first floor and apartments on the second. I could see a family sitting on their apartment balcony as I walked through the multi-thousand year old city. They were so close to me, so close to the site! From their balcony they could easily throw a baseball into the ancient city – no something even heavier, they were that close! I thought to myself, “They see this everyday! They see ancient city walls and temple grounds from their bedroom! They are so close to REAL world history! It’s amazing!”

You can see the encroaching modern city of Elefsina. The ancient city walls are across the picture and one level below.

I started thinking about other places. Growing up in America I thought George Washington lived a long time ago. Now, after living in Greece and frequently traveling Israel, Turkey and Egypt where their respective histories span for thousands of years, I feel like I just missed George at the bus stop. We have this tendency to think about the last 500-700 years in near accurate time lengths, but often we flatten the ancient world’s timeline into one nice chunk. But it’s not, it’s much more vast than we initially give it credit. Let me give you two of my favorite examples and they both deal with ancient Egypt.

• The pyramids were hundreds of years old before Moses was born (approx. 1393 BC). Even before him, they were hundreds of years old when Abraham first showed up in Egypt (b. 1813 - d. 1638 BC)! So when you read about the enslaved Israelites gathering straw to make bricks, those bricks weren’t being used to build pyramids. The pyramids had been completed much earlier and the Egyptians had moved on to other things. Pyramids are a relic from the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BC). (Some of these dates may be a little off, but we’re trying. Either way, you get the idea that massive amounts of time have passed.)
  
  
• Did you know that Cleopatra lived closer to the Space Age than the Pyramid Age? Think about that! It makes sense. She lived in the days of Julius Caesar, which puts here just a few decades before the BC/AD switch. That means she is roughly 2,000 years away from space travel. Conversely, she lived about 2,500 years after the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza. We think of Cleopatra as Egyptian, which is true, but we unconsciously lump all of ancient Egypt together in our minds. It’s all about keeping perspective. Oh, speaking of which, here’s a little extra fun fact: The Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest structure in the world from 2560 BC to 1311 AD when the Lincoln Cathedral in England surpassed it. That’s amazing!

HUGers from summer 2013 standing on the first set of blocks making up one of the Giza Pyramids.
Look at how large it is!

Perspective is a crucial aspect in understanding people and places. I’ve been to Egypt five times. Whether you’ve been or not, you’ve probably seen multiple pictures of the pyramids. What you don’t usually see is that the pyramids bump into modern day Cairo. Most pictures show them with the empty desert background. However, they are almost in the city! I’ve wondered, “Do the locals always look at them with amazement? Or is that just part of their daily drive like how I drive by a McDonalds or three everyday?”

I took this from our lunch stop in Cairo one day. See how close the Pyramid is!

Don’t believe my picture or my comment about the Giza Pyramid’s location? This website has pics of the Giza Pyramids (and other landmarks) from their usual picturesque spot and then from another angle to show you the reality.

If there’s a point to any of this it’s this: wherever you find yourself in life, there is always something worth marveling at. Maybe it’s the Pyramids of Giza. Maybe it’s America’s first wave pool in your backyard. Maybe it’s the people that have been put in your life. Regardless, I believe we have an obligation to keep things in perspective – to never lose our ability to marvel at the world around us, even if it becomes commonplace.

I don’t think about breathing often; I just do it. The air is there and I take it in. It rarely crosses my mind. However, the fact that I don’t think about it does not diminish its value. The problem is me. I have taken for granted that which I use everyday. That’s my fault. We must constantly fight the battle to not become jaded and to always marvel at the vast world around us.

If you would have told me four years ago that I would travel the ancient world regularly, I would have freaked out. I did freak out! I love this stuff! I couldn’t get over the idea that I would be going to all these old/famous/important places so often. Back then I wondered if it could ever grow old? How could it?! Don’t get me wrong. I still love it, but it has become commonplace and it's easy not to keep it in perspective. But listen to this: every four months I get a new group of students, people who are experiencing this stuff for the first time. Watching them marvel at it reminds me to marvel at it. It refreshes my perspective and takes me back. How great is that?!

I don’t know when or if I’ll ever go back to Point Mallard. I’m not a big waterpark guy, but I’ll gladly claim it as part of my heritage. America’s First Wave Pool was pretty much in my backyard for 13 years, and that’s pretty cool.

My second time to visit the Pyramids of Giza in the summer of 2011.