The Book Encounter

On this day, starstuff gave birth to one of my childhood heroes. Today is Carl Sagan Day. I discovered Sagan before he passed away in 1996. The same year when my journey into physics at high school began then astrophysics at university. One of my favourite Sagan books I read while growing up was “Contact”. During this time I visited the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico for the first time. This was before “Contact” became a film. Sagan’s legacy spans time and space. His works has inspired the public to look up at the stars and to look within. He invented a new form of storytelling, one that combined science and art, one that revealed the cosmos to our imagination.

On my own personal voyage, the book encounter that affected my life was Sagan’s “The Demon-Haunted World”. I read this book during my childhood time of self-discovery. By this point I loved science and all things space. By this point I read the Bible, Quran (twice) and various others texts cover to cover. By this point I was fascinated with theology, world belief systems, the paranormal, aliens, and the human condition. I still am. A critical deep thinker’s curiosity in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding is always ongoing.

As a young teenager, I wondered about my place is in the universe, in life. I searched for my own answers to the big questions, everything from the beginning of the cosmos to the pale blue dot to all that is or was or ever will be. Along the way, I discovered my passion for imagination and storytelling – the stuff of dreams. I discovered how we need every aspect of our humanity to tell our story among the stars. Belief, faith, spirituality, consciousness, reason, science, and so on. Everything matters. They connect by bridges made up of things that make us human. I learned that it is not about knowing the answers to the big questions. Answers by their very nature lead to other questions. For me, it was always about being on our way to discovering the answers. The process of growing. The journey of exploration and discovery. To go on our own personal voyages in life. To question everything.

This is one of my favourite lines from the book “Contact” that sums up my excitement for my cosmic wanderings. In honour of Carl Sagan Day, I celebrate humanity’s dream and quest to know itself in the cosmos and beyond.

Post by spacetimehuman

Comments are closed.