We're Fortunate to Travel ... Without The Fortune! [Season 1, Episode 21] - a podcast by Sheila Dee & Evo Terra - Third World Survivors
from 2015-06-02T18:00
Full Show Script
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EVO: It's June. Holy crap. That's almost five months of traveling the world. Doing exactly what we want to do every moment of every day, as we fully embrace our Opportunistic Travelers lifestyle.
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SHE: Every moment? What about the "moments" spent at doctor visits? Or the "moments" we spent camped out in the bathroom waiting for, uh, tummy issues to take their course?
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EVO: Well obviously not those parts.
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SHE: And what about the days you spent whining non-stop about travel coordination, delayed flights, or sitting on an airplane for 9 hours straight?
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EVO: OK, OK... I'm embellishing a bit. Still, you gotta admit, with those few exceptions, we're living a very fortunate life.
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SHE: And that's the story we want to highlight on this show. Fortune and fortunate don't always go hand in hand, but sometimes they do, as we discovered at the Marimurtra Botanical Gardens in Blanes, Catalunya.
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EVO: The garden itself is as stunning as it is expansive. But its beauty shines even brighter when you learn the story of how it came to be. In 1924, at the precocious age of 50 years young, German-born Carl Faustopted to turn his sea-side private garden into a legacy for the entire world. Using his own personal fortune to buy up the hillsides surrounding his estate in Blanes -- the place he'd made his home and wealth over the last 27 years -- he set out to do something audacious: To create, in his own words "an Epicurean republic of biologists where scholars and wise people —away from the noises of the big city and everyday life, in the middle of an interesting garden, with an ideal climate and a Hellenic landscape— can be devoted to the creation of ideal values and the search for an absolute truth".
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SHE: That's a rather lofty goal for a garden. But once you see Marimurtra gardens, you'll know he achieved it.
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EVO: And it wasn't just money that made it happen. After 12 years of land acquisition and near constant construction on the garden, the violent Spanish Civil war started. Unfortunately for Carl, he was visiting Germany at the time. For three years he found himself exiled from his home and his life's work. When he was finally able to return, he found the country struggling under a harsh dictatorship, with many of his friends, advisors and fellow botanists still in exile, imprisoned, or dead. But rather than give up on his dream of building an international foundation and legacy, he persevered, working with, around, and under adversity for another 13 years. He passed away at age 77, and in 1952 was able to transfer ownership of his expansive gardens to the town of Blanes so that all lovers of science could enjoy his creation for generations to come.. Carl Foust: A fortunate man who used his fortune to build a fortunate life. And my newest personal hero.
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SHE: Of course, not all of us are fortunate enough to have the fortune necessary to leave that type of legacy behind.
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EVO: You mean people like us? Amassing a fortune has never been high on our To Do list....
Further episodes of ShEvo vs. The First World | A Skeptical Look at Western Culture
Further podcasts by Sheila Dee & Evo Terra - Third World Survivors