Who Speaks For Earth?

The normalcy of the day struck me as incredibly serene. Rewatched bits and pieces of that lovely movie, ‘Contact’ based on Carl Sagan’s book by the same name. Every time I read something written by Dr. Sagan or watch an interview of the man, I am struck by an aching silence within the depths of my existence. A person who has contributed so much to my world view, my beliefs, my knowledge of our resplendent universe – with his enigmatic presence and exceedingly calming voice made way into my heart and held my finger, and opened the window of my heart and mind to a greater ‘out-there’. He not only taught me why it's important to look at the world from a skeptical yet numinous world view, but also taught me how we ought to temper our rationale with compassion and empathy for our fellow human beings, and our organic cousins!

An alexithymic feeling of inexpressibility seizes me as I try to imagine what meeting him would’ve been like. Perhaps, I would’ve said to him ‘’You’re the biggest reason I have such a burning passion for scientific endeavours and why I look at the world, the way that I do’’ or I’d suggest to him, ‘’Make the next Cosmos series more enlightening and numinous than the last!’’ or maybe, I’d just want to express my gratitude with a simple ‘’Thank you.’’ Alas, I can do neither of those things for the man who returned the word ‘’spirituality’’ into my vocabulary once more by giving it a secular context, the man who taught me of the great men and women of Abdoura, Alexandria, and the Upanishads, the man who they call Carl Sagan… is no more. Carl Sagan once said, that if he possessed the means to travel backwards in time he would surely go and explore the bibliographical wonders of the ancient library of Alexandria in Ptolemaic Egypt. If I ever came across such a machination of wonder, I would take it back when Carl Sagan was producing the series ‘Cosmos’ and watch the master at work in complete rapture! Or perhaps watch him work his other work of wonder 'Contact' and ask him how he managed to write such a literary piece of genius? 

And then perhaps, we could go on our mighty adventures together! Dr. Sagan, me and the time machine! I suppose, this is quickly evolving into some wondrous work of fiction paralleling that brilliant show from across the Atlantic – Doctor Who. So, before I digress further, I want to say, thank you Carl Sagan. I do not believe in the after life and I do not believe you are reading or partaking in this experience in any way. Except perhaps, the molecules that reside in my body once passed through yours in their eternal yet ephemeral march; for after all you were the one that taught me that, we are all the children of the stars and connected in a physical and existential way to each other.

In the last episode of his defining work, 'Cosmos'' he famously asked,

''We know who speaks for the nations. But who speaks for the human species? Who speaks for Earth?''

If there was one human being who could personify all that was wondrous and noble and decent and eloquent about our species and our planet, it would be Carl Sagan.

You speak for the Earth, Dr. Sagan!