Introductions are so hard. Do I begin with the guilt I am feeling for writing such an 'off the cuff' piece, meant to honor a man, who brought all the facts in my head together into one logical view. Maybe, I begin with the an anecdote concerning the miracle of life, and tie it back to a famous quote, book, or theory of his. Then again, maybe I should just continue to ramble.

I read "Cosmos" during high school. I dragged a chair to the river, cleared some brush (which took more than one day) plopped the chair down, and read it over the next few weeks. It was summer, the river was flooded and came up to my feet. The solitude was refreshing, and not in the way growing up in a small town can't be. When you first realize how truly lonely we are in this universe your feelings of despair, loneliness, and aimlessness: well, they sort of float down the river.

One might be inclined to think that learning of our universal solitude might make depression sink in a little more. But, Sagan had a way of turning our infinitesimally small human ability into a beacon of pulsar hope and supernovae light. He made me marvel in my own existence and intelligence.

Did you know Komodo dragons can reproduce without sexual activity. Yeah, thats right, they can fertilize their own eggs; virgin dragons if you will. Literally. Mary has nothing on dragons. In "The Dragons of Eden" he illuminates so many quirks and foibles of life and evolution it is enough to leave your head spinning. From the evolution of the forebrain in mammals from birds from reptiles from fish, to the inability of the right eye to understand what the lefthand is drawing in patients who have undergone hemisphere removal, and the theories of recapitulation. Oh my.

Before Sagan the knowledge I obtained was all strewn about on a plane. After Sagan, that plane gained dimension, and I saw the world for what it was: round. I can't continue, there is simply too much to say of the man and his writings, and I have to work early. I LOVE YOU CARL!