Only when we can fall in love with the world that does not love us back, the world that will ultimately consume us, only then do we fully realize our most positive human power. You know the deep-rooted adage that two people fall in love and become as one. Each individual mirrors the passion of the other. We feel the truth of this oneness when we lose a loved one and we feel a piece of us is gone. So, how can we say we love nature when nature shows no love for us, does not acknowledge either our cruelty or our kindness? The answer is a paradox. We are one of millions of forms life takes. We are made of the same molecules and atoms as lifeless mountains, clouds, and oceans, stars and comets. Yet we are uniquely different because we are conscious, because we can remember the past and imagine the future, and because we can love.

On a practical level, the book fits in the wetlands preservation effort anywhere wetlands exist. Thousands of scientific and media articles and books have explained the importance of wetlands in economic and environmental terms. Ultimately, we will pay attention to these reasoned facts and act on them for one reason only—because we care. We'll care because we come to recognize these places offer more than biology; more than costs and benefits. We want to preserve what we love. Grow Old And Die Young is that necessary love story. Through the story of a man who has traveled much of the world and seen its achievements and tragedies, this story connects the soggy, muddy, salty, marshy, mosquito clouded, and subtly beautiful world of coastal wetlands to every human heart.

I came to the tidal waters of Poole Slough and to the forest and marshes around it to find something important. I brought with me my experience in many professions, my education, my wide travels in wild places, and what I have learned over many years as a science writer. Here I watch the drama of tides and weather, sun and fog life and death the way anyone watches a play by Shakespeare, Ibsen, or Chekhov. In this drama I've found the answers I need to understand nature, our place in it, and why I exist. I invite the reader to join me. That's why the prologue is "You Come Too."

"I have been fortunate to know someone whose greatest love is the natural world. He writes with the insight of a Thoreau and the passionate poetry of Omar Kayam. Fortunately for the rest of the world, he has created a written record. Read and savor Grow Old and Die Young by Wallace Kaufman. Years from now, you will remember when you read it." David Deamer, Astrobiologist, Biomolecular Engineer, and author of First Life and Assembling Life.

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