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Feb. 15th, 2002 12:49 amI had forgotten what Carl Sagan was like. The guy was a poet, and he was passionate and optimistic about humanity's place in the universe. I remember having the hots for him only in the way that a 12-year old can, and sometimes being embarrassed by his occasionally purple prose in the way young adolescents striving to be cool can be. It was in my memory that some of his stuff seemed rather syrupy and self-indulgent, but at least after having watched the first episode, I have to revise that. The guy was just plain excited. And even though he was sort of a standard-bearer for the atheists of the world, his frequent references to how we are all connected and all part of the Cosmos makes me think he was a lot more spiritual that a lot of people give him credit for.
But I guess what draws me to him, and separates him from my other intellectual New York boyfriend Ralph Nader, is that while I believe Ralph is as close to a saint as a non-Catholic can conceive of, the poor guy has no charisma and doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humor. He was on the Daily Show last night, and he came across as strongly passionate but sort of crabby and cynical. Carl, on the other hand, has charisma not in the sense that he's hot to look at, but more like he has an infectious enthusiasm that would probably have made him a good cult leader if he were so inclined, and just a general wonder and joy in the natural world, and in our curiosity and intelligence to explore it. I even think a lot of what he said planted some of the seeds that would later grow into my connections with Wicca- what with our interrelatedness to Nature, her beauty and so on, though he might be aghast to hear it if he were alive today. I like to think that if he were, and we had a cuppa together, he'd not see it as just rank superstition but a deep internalization of the realization of that interrelatedness, with a veneer of froo-froo symbolism on the surface that speaks well to my subconscious.
But I guess what draws me to him, and separates him from my other intellectual New York boyfriend Ralph Nader, is that while I believe Ralph is as close to a saint as a non-Catholic can conceive of, the poor guy has no charisma and doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humor. He was on the Daily Show last night, and he came across as strongly passionate but sort of crabby and cynical. Carl, on the other hand, has charisma not in the sense that he's hot to look at, but more like he has an infectious enthusiasm that would probably have made him a good cult leader if he were so inclined, and just a general wonder and joy in the natural world, and in our curiosity and intelligence to explore it. I even think a lot of what he said planted some of the seeds that would later grow into my connections with Wicca- what with our interrelatedness to Nature, her beauty and so on, though he might be aghast to hear it if he were alive today. I like to think that if he were, and we had a cuppa together, he'd not see it as just rank superstition but a deep internalization of the realization of that interrelatedness, with a veneer of froo-froo symbolism on the surface that speaks well to my subconscious.
