I Miss Carl, the Original Space Cowboy

Two Carl Sagan meme's found my Facebook page this morning. Both were marvelous quotes he came up with many years ago now. One was so prescient, it could have been written yesterday. The other, which sits to the left, is just an observation from a man whose life was spent observing. In so few words he encapsulates the Universe we live in and how special it is to be part of it.

I wish that I had paid more attention to Carl Sagan when he was alive and in his prime. I first became aware of Carl when I watched his PBS mini series, "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage" several years after it had first aired. He blew me away by his ability to make the big complicated ideas of Science make sense to a dumass like me. Sadly, as I was hard into my self interested journey of me and mine at the time, you know, family , job, blah, blah, blah ...... I paid only occasional attention to him after that.

It was only after his death in 1996 that I came to truly appreciate what a great mind he had and maybe that he was the greatest prognosticator of the last several centuries. He was not just an observer of the Heavens, his chosen field, he was able to use the phenomenal analytical skills he developed early in his life to bring together the threads that connect everyone of us to every little thing in the Universe. Nothing happens that we are not connected to. Nothing.

His grand notion of all inclusive connectivity has not caught on with everyone, but there are enough of us who have turned on that light, that I see this realization eventually catching on even with the dunderheads who refuse to even entertain the notion that everything is connected.

Carl may be dead, but his impact I think is only beginning. RIP Carl. I miss you.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ....................................

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I thought a fitting tune for today's post would be "Space Cowboy", by The Steve Miller Band. for me, Carl was the original Space Cowboy.