On June 15th 1910 a supply ship set sail from Cardiff, Wales. Aboard was the British Antarctic Expedition which took it's name from the vessel they sat upon, Terra Nova. For next three years the expedition invested themselves in pursuit of exploration, the understanding of science and the glory of being the first to the south pole. In short, things did not go to plan. And I do a great disservice to skip over the full story and also the history of its later glorification, which remains as a peculiar residue in shared memory. Of all the journeys undertaken on that trip, the failures, stories of heroism, dismay and tragedy; that of Apsley Cherry-Garrard most catches my eye.

Setting out through the fierce Antartic winter of June 1911, his team aimed to travel about 60 miles to find (of all things) a Penguin Eggs. They hoped it would reveal vital information, extending our knowledge of evolution. The journey was by many measures a disaster, temperatures fell to −77 °F (−60 °C), they could often travel little more than a mile a day and the egg they returned debunked the theory their patron set out to prove. Cherry-Garrard recounted the story in his volume "The Worst Journey in the World" describing in detail the depths of mental and physical hell the men put themselves through, very real brushes with death and the final blows of tragedy which ended the Terra Nova expedition. In doing so they embodied a profession that is largely closed to us today. They were explorers.

We live in a world that is mapped, where the completeness of google earth treads heavily on the dreams of those hoping for some undiscovered island or spot of  Terra Incognita. Today spaces for the unknown seem much reduced and to those, like myself, who might still dream of Cherry-Garrard's hell. Frustrated, I've been left with only one venue to turn to, ponderous exploration of philosophy. If the maps are drawn, I've thought, I have only two choices. To quietly accept the state of affairs, or suggest there remains something wrong with the map. Possibly though, there is something more in this than childish desire throwing rattle from pram. Philosophy as a word gets a fair share of abuse and sometimes it seems easy to suggest why. Sometimes just the preserve of old bearded men clucking and crooning until incomprehensible gibberish leads us so far from sense we are taken from a world of our own and dropped in confusion and mystery. Or, perhaps worse still, it is viewed as the shadowy art of truth seeking, finding us the way forward when all else are blind, the critique that is the rants of idealists who never have to live with the least of their dreams, but think we should anyway. I'm less suspicious. The kind of philosophy that I'll sneak in here is an attempt to return the possibility of exploration. It starts by going back to the map and asking what on it we choose to believe. To elaborate further I turn to, who else, but a bearded white man.

Unlike these 'comets from outer space' so much of our everyday life, practices and even thoughts is very much mediated by history. In a way that is as true of the science of Deep Impact or Armageddon as it is of philosophical thought. They derives from standpoints, beginnings, orientations if you will. These are the maps handed down to us by the mental and conceptual explorers of old with which we plot not only where we are going to and from, but also where the possibility of further exploration lies. These thoughts, much like the antarctic maps of today, too often taken as given, just the way things are, self-evident.  Mount Terror appears where the map says it will, so it must be there as the map tells it. Reality on the map. What we lose in all this is the simple idea that maps are merely descriptive, they are merely a way of pointing us to things and places, and the direction from which we arrive will change what we end up seeing.

So this blog will be about challenging the maps and approaches of old and new by pausing for a while. By channeling the idea of those who had a blank space, unknown answers to questions and the desire to explore them. In this we hope to return a new sense of the unknown sights and lands that might lie beyond. So pry and prod here, peer and trudge, redefine questions and explore answers and consider what maps we ourselves might be using to start on these journeys. Succeed or fail, retrieve a penguin egg or end in disaster are considerations that pale next to impulse to explore. I'll close this post as  Mr Cherry-Gerrad closed his book , I apologies for quoting in full, but I hope you will agree it is a worthy cry his  profession.

"There are many reasons which send men to the Poles, and the Intellectual Force uses them all. But the desire for knowledge for its own sake is the one which really counts and there is no field for the collection of knowledge which at the present time can be compared to the Antarctic. Exploration is the physical expression of the Intellectual Passion. And I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore. If you are a brave man you will do nothing: if you are fearful you may do much, for none but cowards have need to prove their bravery. Some will tell you that you are mad, and nearly all will say, 'What is the use ?' For we are a nation of shopkeepers, and no shopkeeper will look at research which does not promise him a financial return within a year. And so you will sledge nearly alone, but those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers: that is worth a good deal. If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin's egg."

- Conclusion to The Worst Journey in the World  Published 1922