How Carl Sagan Altered the Course of My Life

Just a piece of contribution for the Carl Sagan memorial blog-a-thon, Dec 20th '06 being the tenth anniversary of his passing.

A movie inspired by his novel, Contact, had succeeded in having me dumped by my girlfriend at the time after a heated debate following our return from the theater.

Apparently, she was thoroughly impressed by the story and connected with the Ellie Arroway character big time. Being a chronic slacker back then, I thought the movie was boring in more ways than not. Honestly, I was expecting Alien-type creatures to come out and rip Ellie's guts apart, but what came across was some philosophical science-versus-faith heavy stuff. Quite surprisingly, my bland opinion triggered an emotional reaction from her intellectual standpoint, which got me condemned as one shallow slob. Obviously, our egos took control from that moment onward. We ended up holding different ends of the argument rope (well, you get my point) and we decided to go our separate ways.

Exactly on that night, after that movie.

Yet, this seemingly unimportant detail (hey, couples break up all the time) turned out to be a major turning point in my life. One huge single flapping of the wings of a Butterfly Effect which got me to where I am right now. Feeling dishonored by the label given by her, passion boiled within me to turn things around. No longer dwelling in the pleasure of slacking, I took serious focus in searching for the subject I would've loved most, to work my ass off upon. Suddenly my lazy self sprouted an ambition for the future.

And I found it in advertising.

Fast forward 8 - 9 years to the present, and here I am, cluelessly experimenting with a blog to keep up with the ever changing mediums. Still for the love of advertising.

Mr. Sagan, if you had never written that novel, which being adapted into that movie, which I watched on that particular night, I might still be a jobless manchild. If only you knew how your work had impacted my life.

And for that, I thank you.