You Can't Handle the Truth
Handling the truth might be the path to serenity
Commentary
My last post “Food Delusion” was a BLAST. Not a single one of you was willing to defend mushroom coffee. One of my readers,
purports that coffee is won or lost with half and half. Of course, half and half is merely a compromise solution (pun intended) of equal parts whole milk and cream. A case can be made that mushroom coffee is just a mix of coffee and mushrooms. I’m going to just claim that pre-mixed stuff of any sort is a strange compromise. Only one loyal reader, the author of ventured to even guess what the alt-sausage was. Supposedly seafood sausage. In some perverse sense of relief, I am glad that the Venn diagram of my readers with Seafood Sausage and Mushroom Coffee remains the empty set.Today’s Tale
Today we begin with the 1992 film “A Few Good Men” and the memorable delivery from Jack Nicholson of today’s title. While it is unlikely to be constructive, I imagine when many of us are faced with new information that undermines our beliefs, this phrase comes to mind.
Contacting Carl Sagan
A few years ago, a friend/neighbor shared a copy of a book I wanted to reread titled “Contact” by Carl Sagan. I am not a big rereader but I remember how much I enjoyed Sagan’s non-fiction so I thought I would give his lone work of fiction another chance to bounce around in my head pinball style and see what it might shake loose. Sagan was born in 1934 in Brooklyn and was the “right age” for a kid interested in science born in 1960. He was 26 years older than me and perhaps still within reach and accessible for me. Contact was his only attempt at fiction. It was not perfect but it was a grand effort to try and tell a larger story.
Carl Sagan Was A Storyteller
Two of his non-fiction books “Cosmos” and “Pale Blue Dot” were books I REALLY enjoyed. I consider his ability to present complex science in an easy to understand and sometimes mixed in with some philosophy and poetic language. The PBS series Cosmos which he hosted was perhaps the best example of trying to present complexity, make it accessible, but never rarely round the corners too much to make it inaccurate for ease of consumption's sake. If there is a goal I struggle with in my writing, that is it! The methods he chose to present non-fiction are remarkable! They remain accurate. They imbue a desire to learn more. They tell a story that needs to be told. RIP Carl Sagan.
Cosmos Talk
Cosmos was the most popular documentary ever offered on PBS until the Ken Burns epic about the Civil War. If I were to buy a single series of television ever produced it would be Cosmos. I am confident it holds up well. I am also confident that watching and reading Sagan has had a lifelong influence on me. The book Cosmos for the readers out there captures the essence of the show very well.
Back to Contact
I reread “Contact” because we had watched the movie version with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey from 1997 long ago. While I enjoyed the movie I knew that Hollywood needed to round the edges to make it palatable for a broad audience. I thought of all this while I rewatched the movie while reading a book about something completely different. Even with this split in focus, I concluded a post about Carl Sagan was one I would enjoy writing and HOPEFULLY you dear readers might also enjoy. In my opinion, Sagan is the consummate storyteller. He provides a vision of our greater world and our place in it with the innate advantage of knowledge, not conjecture of our place in space and time.
Contact — The Movie
As I researched, I realized the movie (made in 1997) captured Matthew McConaughey EARLY in his film career. He has evolved into one of my favorite actors. It also revealed that Jodie Foster, born in 1964, has been in the limelight since she was 3 years old in a Coppertone commercial. By the time she was 13, she was making memorable films. She walked away from film and attended Yale, returning to the screen to continue her career. Considering suntan lotion commercials, Jodie was 30+ years into her career when she made Contact!
Contact, for those unfamiliar, and possibly interested, is a fictional account of contact with aliens. Rather than concentrating on the aliens, the story is about humanity coming to terms with a different position in the universe and how that might impact beliefs, cooperation, and the redefinition of understanding.
What’s Up With the Title?
You can’t handle the truth is a loaded title. What does it have to do with Carl Sagan and yours truly? As I described earlier, I enjoyed both his non-fiction (like Cosmos) as well as his foray into fiction (Contact). While it was far from a certainty earlier in my life, I am now a big fan of a settled mind. What do I mean by that? Here are a couple of phrases that capture the point for me.
I believe it is very important to have core beliefs and incorporate them into your actions.
I believe amongst the hardest thing in life, is when something dear to us (perhaps a core belief) is challenged by fresh evidence.
Given time, effort, and consideration our minds can resettle but there is work involved.
MOST IMPORTANT — things change and we change. I enjoyed Contact the second time around but I did not love it. For me, that is GREAT because if I haven’t changed at all since last reading it that would be SAD.
Carl Lets Me Down (For a Bit)
So now I am nearly done! When I was a later teenager and into my 20s I rested on every word from Carl Sagan. What’s even better is I still enjoyed his non-fiction writing and his PBS shows! What is BEST OF ALL emerges from reports over a decade ago that some of his work on Cosmos (which I probably loved at the time) was just flat wrong! That’s the thing that makes us so special. Sure, we can come to believe something. What’s even better is we have it within ourselves to change our own minds. You see life is not black and white despite what your deep-seated biases in your head might embrace. Life is gray. It can be a lot of fun to be persuaded and change your mind.
For the record, Sagan was a big believer in science always leading the way and could be hostile to other forces that charted the course to civilization. His bias carried him to embrace or at least repeat a massive myth about the Library at Alexandria. I still enjoy my memories of watching Cosmos on PBS. I am still a big fan of Sagan and appreciate his influence on me. When I came to understand the greater truth about the Library at Alexandria, I am thankful I was able to handle the truth despite the protestations of Jack Nicholson. Things are true until they are not. It is quite a gift to have the faculties to process our way through it. Sometimes, it seems, this gift I describe is use or lose. It’s a fun habit to exercise, at least for me. When I meet a fellow fan of Sagan I might end up talking about the bits he got wrong. That is not his greater story, it is merely part of the tapestry.
The Poll & Music
All good futurist/speculative science and science fiction is a mix of fact and interpretation. Perhaps this is why I enjoy Sci-Fi. While a repeat from a prior post, I cannot resist a favorite band of my youth writing a song about J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece. Listen close for Mordor! I am unsure how many years of head-banging was in the rearview mirror before I realized the connection!
“Things are true until they are not.” Love this!
I'm not a big re-reader, either. A. because there are so many books in the world to read! And B. because I'm afraid I won't love my favorites as much as I once did. But you make a great point--it's good when we re-read and don't love the book anymore, because that means we've changed! But back to Sagan--I've always been a fan because of my later mother-in-law, who adored his work. One of the great moments of her life was visiting Cornell and seeing the plaque with his name on it by his office door.