Last week I returned to the University of Sydney to accept an honorary doctorate.
asserted
I → return → doctorate
It was wonderful to be back at a place that shaped my life and the lives of my family; where I’d spent the best part of a decade studying arts, and some law, and then diving into history to write a PhD that took a ridiculously long time and caused clumps of my hair to fall out.
asserted
clumps → shape → hair
History, like careers, like human lives, never operates in a straight line.
asserted
History → operate → line
It gets knocked out of shape by events, like all of us, like the human heart.
asserted
It → knock → heart
On that day my heart was particularly dented because that place was also where my father, alongside my mother, studied arts in the ’60s.
asserted
father → dent → 60s
He went on to live a big life of public service, humanity and adventure.
asserted
He → go → service
He died suddenly, before I was due to speak at the university, and I thought about not going.
asserted
I → die → university
But I was there because he would have wanted me there, along with my family – mainly because he loved attention and fancy hats and would have been horrified at the prospect of my forgoing either on his account.
asserted
my → want → account
Dad always said Mum was the great scholar, not him.
asserted
Mum → say → ?
And he paid attention, especially to the things that aren’t written down, that aren’t on the syllabus.
asserted
that → pay → syllabus
He paid attention to people, and to the ocean.
asserted
He → pay → ocean
He taught me to push forward in the surf, to enter the ocean every day no matter your mood or workload, no matter the colour of the skies, the size of the waves (within reason), to dive in and just try, to give it a crack.
asserted
He → teach → crack
When you find people who believe in you, don’t take them for granted.
asserted
who → find → them
I’ve worked most of my life as a journalist but history is the first great love of my life.
asserted
history → work → life
History has sneaked me into the best places, like a friend who knows the bouncer (hang on to those people, too, by the way).
History has taken me to secret archives in Windsor Castle, diaries hidden in attics in Scotland, a job in New York, a fellowship in Boston, and a career in journalism.
asserted
History → sneak → journalism
Journalism and history are closely related; the former is the messy first draft of the latter.
asserted
former → relate → latter
Both require constant revision, vigilance, revisitation.
asserted
Both → require → revision
And both require attention.
asserted
both → require → attention
And for historians, for whom the challenge is not just to notice and record what’s there but also what’s missing.
asserted
what → notice → whom
One of my favourite historians, David McCullough, has four words pinned above his computer in his writing shack in Martha’s Vineyard: “Look at the fish”.
asserted
One → have → fish
This comes from Louis Agassiz, the 19th-century Harvard naturalist, who would give every new student the same test.
asserted
who → come → test
He’d pluck a smelly fish out of a jar and tell them to just look at it.
asserted
He → pluck → it
Many stared at it for days.
asserted
Many → star → days
One of them wrote that after several days of despair he realised what he had not seen, and what was unique.
asserted
what → write → what
Excitedly, he said to Agassiz, “It has paired organs, one on either side!”
asserted
It → say → side
“Great, that’s right, you’ve got it!” said the teacher.
asserted
teacher → ’ → it
“OK,” said the student, “what now?”
asserted
student → say → ?
Agassiz said: “Look at the fish.”
asserted
Agassiz → say → fish
Some spent months doing this.
asserted
Some → spend → this
The reason I love this story is because it underlines the power of true attention.
asserted
it → love → attention
Keep looking and you will see things others haven’t.
asserted
you → keep → others
Keep looking to ensure your eyes don’t deceive you.
asserted
eyes → keep → you
Don’t be freaked out if you notice something that others haven’t.
asserted
others → freak → something
This is where the study of history requires courage.
asserted
study → require → courage
And it’s even more important in an era of AI – a vaulting technology that is better and faster than any of us here at synthesising and charting every single thing that’s ever been noticed and recorded by humans.
asserted
that → ’ → humans
But noticing things that haven’t been noticed?
asserted
that → notice → things
That takes deep and meticulous human observation.
asserted
That → take → observation
I felt all the apprehension you could possibly imagine when I decided to write a biography of Queen Victoria, even though she was one of the most examined women in history.
uncertain
she → feel → history
I kept staring at the fish.
asserted
I → keep → fish
And I found absences, assumptions, mistakes others had made.
asserted
others → find → absences
…and 28 more, not listed.
The Aporia
