I think these videos are beautifully put together, and I often watch them in the mornings, before I go to work. I find them both inspiring and humbling. Certain phrases from Carl Sagan’s narration often stay with me all today, phrases like: “It will not be we who reach Alpha Centurai, and the other nearby stars, but a species very much like us, with more of our strengths, and fewer of our weaknesses … for all our failings, despite our limitations and fallibilities, we humans are capable of greatness,” and “we long to be here for a purpose even though, despite much self-deception, none is evident, the significance of our lives, and our fragile planet, is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life’s meaning.”

Sagan had the ability to step back and view human existence from a distance, to take it all in without bias or preconception. I do not think this is uncommon among scientists, particularly astronomers, but what set Sagan apart was the poetry with which he could express what he saw. His timing and intonation are perfect. He was one of those people who serve as the human face of science, the link between the arcane discoveries of men in white coats and the general public, the artists, the dreamers, the people in the street.

That’s an important role for someone to fill. After all, it is easy for many people to mistrust scientists and scientific theory, simply because they don’t understand it, especially when it doesn’t fit in with your every day experience. We still have people like Richard Dawkins and David Attenborough, along with many others, to fill this role, but none have had quite the same power of expression as Carl Sagan, nor his passionate optimism. Richard Dawkins, while brilliant and intelligent, can often be quite acerbic, while David Attenborough, well, he’s close to Sagan in his almost child-like wonder and passion for all things living, but is no poet, is just a presenter, one of the most distinguished and respected presenters of zoological programming, of course, but just a presenter.

I’m not saying that everything Carl Sagan was unequivocally amazing, from reviews I’ve read, some of his books are a bit hit and miss, and I’ve seen a couple of episodes of Cosmos which were fairly boring, compared to the brilliant peaks that show occasionally reached, which I couldn’t say, for example, of The Ascent of Man, which is consistently boring. What the above videos capture, however, is Sagan at his absolute best. The length and selection of the quotations is spot on, and the images match them perfectly; I love the synchronisation in the first one of “we who cannot put our own planetary home in order” with the image of the oil-covered bird and the riot footage. I think everyone should watch these videos, I think they should be required viewing for the human race, because these words are the words that should make a person realise that the universe does not revolve around our own young species, but that we, as a whole, can do great things. These videos should inspire people to begin work, in their own small way, on those “new wonders, undreamt of in our time, [which] will … have been wrought in another generation, and another.”

I suppose obsession and enthusiasm make people interesting, and perhaps tell us something of the doggedness of human nature. Perhaps people just like to see people with focus to their lives, regardless of what, or how absurd, that focus is. Do we all feel lacking in focus at times? All the time? I certainly do, quite often. I try to focus my life on writing, but that’s not always possible. I only put Grizzly Man on because I didn’t feel in the right frame of mind to write, and I didn’t want to spend hours forcing words or staring at blank pages.

A good friend of mine told me she felt jealous sometimes of people who had focus or hobbies or know what they want to do. She cited my writing as an example, that she felt she doesn’t really have anything like that. I worry though, as I suppose, or hope, all creative people do, about whether I really am good, or as good as I want to be, which is very good, or if I just want to be so much that I convince myself I am. Especially now, it feels more of concern, because as I go forwards I stake more of myself on writing, as I spend years at university paying to learn how to become a better writing, working towards leaving with a degree in writing and nothing but.

I’ve been trying to write a novel lately, and reached forty-thousand words, before coursework deadlines got in the way. That was what I was going to write earlier, but barely felt enthused to get into. I’m worried about losing the story, because stories are elusive. I have it all planned out, but it’s the feeling that can be lost. Writing a novel is hard, no one will tell you otherwise, except perhaps those few who have their own formula down perfectly, and churn them out in the same mould every few months. The hardest thing I find is consistency; keeping that same writing style and feeling up over multiple sessions over an extended period of time. Raymond Carver said that was why he liked short stories because “they can be written and read in one sitting.”

I’m concerned too that focusing on becoming a writer isn’t really a focus at all. After all, what’s the point of being the most eloquent, lyrical wordsmith if you have nothing to say? It occurred to me earlier that writing may in fact be a means to an end, and what that end is I am unsure. Do I want to entertain? Do I want to make people feel good? Do I want to further human knowledge and experience? I think really I just want to leave my mark on the world, to be remembered, though if that’s true, I’m really not sure what the benefit of immortality is after I’m dead.

Timmy Treadwell, the subject of Grizzly Man, left his mark on the world, albeit filtered through the eyes of Werner Herzog, the film’s writer and narrator. He didn’t come across as a particularly, well, not ‘likeable’, person. He’s no hero-figure, he’s no David Attenborough. He was annoying sometimes, and naive, and sentimental. He interfered with his subjects, which did create some incredibly intimate footage, but is not in keeping with the codes of documentary-making. He was poserish, but not in a Bear Grylls I’m-so-great way, more like a child given a video-camera to play with, starring in their own action movie. There was definitely something of a child in his fascination with the world around him, that inspires a warmth towards him that would otherwise have been deterred by his strangeness, his anger, his sentimentalism and his misanthropy.

Yesterday another friend of mine casually mentioned that he had written two-hundred-and-forty pages of script over the past two or three months, totalling at between sixty- to seventy-thousand words, quite apart from whether it’s any good or not, that’s a riduculous amount. I’m not sure exactly how this makes me feel, but it’s negative. Definitely some jealousy in there. It’s okay that people older than me, and people I’ve never met can do this, but he’s one of my peers, like me in a number of ways. Of course, people I have met who are older than me, by however much, who have acheived more than me, make me jealous as well. Not acheived in a physical sense, I mean, acheived in doing great work and gaining respect for it. I think that’s something I want: respect, to be thought of highly by my peers and, especially, by people who have never met me or meet me only briefly. It’s a kind of hubris, and I know many, many people want the same and never acheive it, but I’d hate to be one of them.

I used to fairly regularly write a personal blog. I replaced that with this site, and decided to transfer my energies from keeping an online journal to writing new prose fiction and articles for The Aspiring Writer. The latter faded away fairly quickly, though I’m fairly pleased with maintaining the former with at least some degree of regularity, even if it is irregular regularity. But I kind of miss that personal blog as a place to vent and voice opinions, without worrying about focus. So, in a way, this a return to that, one which I may or may not keep up, as the mood takes me. And I suppose a few people will read this, only a few.

Does anyone else feel that, and particularly with the internet, it’s more important to shout than to be heard? I write for myself, mostly: I try to write the stories I want to read, and I quite often succeed at that, but I still crave the praise of others, the affirmation of my abilities. I like to be heard, but I like to shout more, on the internet at least, where everyone has to shout to be heard. I don’t raise my voice much in real life.

I read an article recently from the Guardian, about some analyst saying how screen-based communications are diminishing real social interactions because it’s easier and safer to type rather than to speak because there’s less fear of rejection and replies can be planned out rather than requiring spontaneity. Well that’s a whole big issue, too big for this entry and my opinion alone, but I agree with that, based on myself. I far prefer writing and typing as a means of correspondance than face-to-face interaction because I do feel so much more eloquent and considered, being able to plan every single word, and delete as appropriate. It’s easier, at least, even if slightly less rewarding. I like emails and chat-logs and letters and blogposts too because they’re less ephemeral than spoken words: they’re a mark on the world, virtual or not.

On the other hand, and though I consider myself something of a misanthrope, if not to the extent of Timmy Treadwell, there’s a thrill to real-life conversation, sometimes, that you just can’t get in anything written, not just IM conversations and email exchanges, but in fictional dialogue as well. It reminds you, by which I mean me, of what real life is about, of how it can make you feel. I don’t know whether I really am a ‘writer’ or not, but I certainly spend more time in a haze of fictional worlds, sometimes mine, often other people’s, than I do in the real world, and I think it’s good for me to get out into the parts of the real world that don’t depress me from time to time.

Sometimes I suppose that’s all I’m really looking for, through experience and through writing: the real world, meaning. I imagine that’s all anyone’s looking for. If that was the end, representing a ‘real’, true version of the world through the means of writing, would that satisfy me? The impression that Grizzly Man, that his friends and that his footage, gave of Timmy Treadwell was that he was happy to die eaten by a bear, doing what he felt was important, becoming a part of nature.

In order to survive they need a meal about once every two days. A live meal. So every couple of days I have to grab a jam-jar and piece of cardboard and see if I can catch a fly or a moth or something. Actually getting the insect I catch into the cage with the mantises is something of a chore, as you can imagine, since both insects are continually trying to escape.

So I caught this housefly earlier (I assume it was a housefly because it was a fly and it was in my house) and spent a good twenty minutes trying to coax it to its death. Eventually I got it in and the Mantis caught it, just look in a David Attenborough documentary brought to life.

I decided to watch the Mantis eat its meal, a little macabre perhaps, but interesting nonetheless. Two things struck me about this spectacle:

Firstly, flies stay alive for a long time when being eaten. I know the mantis doesn’t have a poisonous bite or sting like a lot of predatory insects do, but I still assumed it would kill its prey quickly with a bite to the neck to make eating it easier, like lions do. But no, the mantis started on the side of the fly, just working its way into it. And the fly just kept on waving its legs, flapping its one free wing. It’s really quite grim to see something that’s almost half-eaten still alive.

But not as grim as the second thing that struck me about watching this: as the mantis bit away at the side of the fly, these little white maggoty worms started falling out of the fly and wriggling around on the floor. At first I wondered if these were the fly’s offspring, but flies lay eggs. And these things were really quite repulsive, each about 2mm long, writhing around on the bottom of the cage. One of them got onto the mantis as well, and wriggled over its eye. I would not have eaten that fly if I was a mantis, I’d have just thrown it down the second anything like that came out of it.

So what were these wormy things? Well, I can only assume that they were some sort of parasite. I had a look on Yahoo! answers and found this, which seems to be something similar. Really, how nasty is that, to be full of chunky parasites and not being able to do anything about it except carry on as normal? Ugh. Just thought I’d share that with you all.