OPENING BLURB:
Imagine
the scene: the President of the United States of America [Bill Clinton] has
just addressed the nation on television from the White House Rose Garden, officially
informing us that strong evidence has been found suggesting we’re not alone in
the universe. He opens the floor to questioning. The reporters have a once in a
lifetime opportunity to ask the leader of the free world, and arguably the
planet, one of the most profound questions ever asked and answered at a pivotal
point in human history…the press jostles to be recognized by the leader. He
looks searchingly through the crowd, then points to a man in the back. Magnanimously,
the President has picked an ordinary Joe to ask this most momentous question. Eagerly,
the plebeian queries: “Mr. President, how do you feel about Senator Dole’s
flip-flopping about the abortion plank to the Republican Party platform in San
Diego?”
Related Update:
What are we doing?
Most
people truly aware about global warming know time has run out and we lack the
space to deal with the consequences. It feels like the accelerating rate of
change is beyond our ability to cope. It feels like the feedback loops between
self and system are dissolving beyond repair. Whether it’s technology,
lifestyle or world events, people are tiring as we become materially exhausted.
Many would love to migrate, but there’s no place left to go. This means we’re
reaching a breaking point, and when it’s reached we’ll find out what we’ve
actually become. As it is today, nobody really knows.
Candidates
in “democracies” around the world can’t and won’t talk about global warming and
what it means because the interests they represent won’t let them. It’s
interesting that people will riot and kill over a cartoon, or shoot somebody
over abortion, or burn them at the stake for witchcraft, but not get too
stirred up over how they themselves are killing the planet with their
lifestyles and attitudes.
Today
I’m posting an excerpt from a work in progress. Though the narrator is a
fictional character, the story about the alien abductee actually occurred
pretty much as related here. The views stated are not mine but those of the
abductee. This is an extremely rough draft, so please, no comments on its
fictional quality. Its relevance becomes apparent if you replace aliens with
Gaia and global warming [or at least add them as the piece’s essential
ingredients]. Rather than being livestock for aliens, in my fictional Gaia
theory humans may have evolved as instruments of the planet’s cognitive
evolution. We’re an emergent function of the planet’s cognitive evolution into
a mindful defense system able to shoot down incoming that have hurt so much in
the past. Perhaps.
Of
course, all this is coming from a teleological perspective, as in things come
into existence intentionally, and when you think of it, intention of some type
does inform everything. Consciousness exists. Therefore, if it’s perceived, if
it exists, intention is involved in some way. Or maybe not. Everything’s open
to debate, though for some reason we won’t discuss this on a large scale.
Global
warming is symptomatic of something our Emerger—whether it be God in Heaven, an
alien race, Mother Earth evolving us or some exotic combination of the above—is
rejecting. Any way that one looks at it, global warming is a sign that the “gods”
are not happy. We’re ignoring the signs. These “gods” are slowly revealing
themselves to people over time and will do so on a grand scale once the human
population—the human superorganism—is mentally ready for that kind of awareness.
There are signs all around us. We’re like livestock to the aliens, an emerging organ
within the global organism to Gaia… “What’s that?” she might wonder…
What all
these “others” have in common is their possession of a consciousness above and
beyond anything we’ll ever grasp on this dimension alone. It’s approachable by
us only through our minds.
When the
alien abductee’s ideas were first
presented to me I was humiliated. But after awhile, it took some years
actually, I came to realize that “good,” if it’s anything, is that which
humiliates the worst tendencies in people. I’ve come to believe that “worst
tendency” is the belief that the Earth exists for human use and life revolves
around us. I believe in a cosmic biocentrism where mind in human form is but a
single strand of mind within a conceivably infinite fabric. Quite often these negative,
anthropocentric tendencies fight back with a vengeance [it sucks being
humiliated], but they always lose [as animus must always lose to anima, being
sapped by it], and expended of the excess, which is to say negative energy, our
worst tendencies have no fight left in them. That’s because at the heart of these
negative tendencies appears the denial of another person’s truth, a rejection
of another’s reality because it doesn’t resemble one’s own.
To think
humans are the most important species in the world is a lie we can no longer
live with.
Continuing
this kind of dishonesty is leading to Armegeddon, which is what happens
whenever humans ignore their “god’s” desire.
I write
hoping for a more peaceful apocalypse…or more loving revelation.
There
are multiple layers of delusion/narration involving the narrative of this
fiction-in-progress. Any disagreements you may have with what you’re reading
will be with the narrator[s], not “me.” As all the novel’s narrators are delusional, none are reliable. And what
about the readers? The truth is up to you. And remember, please, this is only a
rough sketch, an initial draft to get something down…who knows if it will even
make the final cut…but I’m sharing it because I think it’s relevant and kind of
interesting:
Wednesday, August 7, 1996—Journal Entry:
HE BELIEVES WE ARE NOT ALONE
At
11: 35 p.m., Tuesday, August 6, 1996, while tuning in to Nightline for the
day’s final dose of moral outrage after laboring to remove the rubble
foundation from a friend’s old country house all afternoon in ninety degree
heat and fishing all evening for worm thieving prey in a bug infested swamp and
spending the post-funk, pre-midnight hours in my Jacuzzi with the friend whose
house I had earlier helped demolish, I sat alone in the dark before the boob
tube and learned from Ted Koppel that supposedly solid evidence had allegedly
emerged from scientific studies that life, albeit in a microbial format, once
dwelled [and still may] in our nearest planet neighbor’s crust at the same time
that life for we earthlings began developing here [for all the details read the
newspapers, etc.]. Setting aside my skepticism that an asteroid hit Mars 16
million years ago sending a micro-corpse infested fragment of its surface into
solar orbit until it entered the Earth’s gravitational field finding its way to
the South Pole some 15,987,000 years
later
only to be discovered in 1984 by a NASA sponsored Antarctic expedition hunting
space debris and getting stowed for twelve years in a warehouse somewhere
before being analyzed and declared mind-blowing, I think that at the very least
the possibility of its being true, or real, is exciting enough. What a fabulous
story! This essay is going to analyze the meaning of this story if it is true,
as well as the meaning of the “discovery,” or news, in the event it turns out
not to be.
*****
One
Saturday in the fall of 1991, I was canvassing a neighborhood in Sierra Madre,
CA, for Greenpeace. I noticed in my clip that I had a card for a member who
consistently contributed $250 each year, and it was time for her to contribute
again. Her address placed her high up on one of the mountains [I don’t recall
the name], and I decided to work from its base up, which would mean she would
be one of the last people I’d see on my initial run up the street.
When
I arrived at her house, I had yet to receive any donations from the people I
had spoken to. However, most folks weren’t home so I wasn’t bothered that much
by it. The neighborhood was nice and I had that $250 card. Her house was a one
story structure nestled neatly into the side of a cliff. From the street out
front one could see the urban sprawl of Los Angeles. It was a beautiful setting
choked by smog. I approached the door and knocked. A stocky woman in her
mid-thirties with dark hair and penetrating eyes opened the door.
She
was all business, eyeing me suspiciously. I introduced myself and asked if the
woman whose name I had on the membership card was at home. She turned out to be
the woman in the doorway. After looking out into the street, she nervously
invited me to wait on her doorstep while she retrieved her checkbook.
She
returned a few moments later with a check for $250, which I eagerly accepted,
and an envelope in her other hand. As I began informing her about the issues
our local office was working on, the woman said she had something I might be
interested in seeing. Believing she had evidence of some local environmental
atrocity, I eagerly agreed to see whatever it was she wanted to show me.
Without a word, she handed me the envelope. I opened it up and inside were ten
instamatic photographs of a flying saucer hovering in the sky over her street.
There were two Army choppers circling it [I assume they were circling, they may
have been hovering]. She took me by the arm and led me to the spot in the
middle of the street where she had taken the photographs. I stood there and
watched the landmarks in the pictures form before my eyes. She then informed me
that she had been in contact with aliens her entire life, that she was under
24-hour government surveillance and that she had had a respectable job with a
big California bank and that she was a person who believed in reason and logic,
that her experiences had cost her her job because of a nervous breakdown… Things
were going too fast and getting too far afield of Greenpeace and ecology, so I
politely let her finish and then thanked her for her contribution and left.
However,
further canvassing proved impossible. How does one doctor instant photos? She
seemed so intense. I was certain that she believed what she was telling me was
real. And how does one doctor instant photos? With two and a half times the
day’s fundraising quota in my hip pocket, I decided to take a seat on a rock
and try to absorb what I had just seen and heard. If it was real [how could it
be?], what did it mean? I decided to return to her house and see if she would
answer some questions. To my relief, she was glad to see me, and not at all
surprised. She invited me into her house and sat down in her living room. It
was a dark, wooden interior that was rustic and charming. She served me a glass
of ice water, invited me to sit down, and said ask away. Here, to the best of
my recollection, are the highlights of the interview that took place:
Q: Do you have any further evidence?
A: Look at that beam in the wall. Do you see anything? (I see
what looks like the face of an alien: large head and eyes, small mouth, skinny
neck…formed by the grain in the wood). They’ve been here many times. But do I
have physical evidence? Just the pictures, and the coincidence of that face in
the wood. They’ve been here many times. Last time was just sixteen days ago. It
was in the middle of the night and I was in bed sleeping. When I awoke, I
sensed that something was present. Through my bedroom door over there I saw a
very tall, very dark, emaciated figure standing right about here (she gestures
at the space of floor in front of her). She was obviously the leader. She was very
black and for some reason I refer to her simply as Cleopatra. She had a lot of
little grey helpers with her, about six of them, three feet tall or so. Their
large heads peaked just above the top of the counter over there (she points to
her kitchen counter, which could double as a living room bar if she wanted it
to). She told me not to worry, that everything would be alright. But how would
you feel? I just want to be left alone. But they won’t leave me alone. They
keep coming back.
Q: Who are they?
A: There are three races: the greys, the browns and the
blacks. The blacks, like Cleopatra, seem to be running the show. The greys are
their immediate assistants, and the browns seem to be manual laborers. They come
from a planet in the solar system surrounding Alpha Centauri, and they’ve been
coming here since the beginning. They are responsible for many of our major
technological breakthroughs, which they only helped us with once we happened
upon the theories behind what made them work. Plastic is an example of an
alien-wrought consumer good. We had help with World War II, but they didn’t
help us with the bomb even though Hitler drove them crazy, because they hate to
interfere. They have an underground base in the desert near here and they’ve
been helping our Air Force in the Cold War. You can go out Route 87 any night
and see things in the sky. You should go some time (I have changed the number
of the route, and never went there, not really wanting to be confronted with
more information—I wish I hadn’t done that).
Q: Why are they here? Why do they
interfere?
A: To expand their gene pool. Their species is dying out due
to a lack of genetic diversity. The human species was basically made in their
own image and planted here with the intention of growing diverse strains of DNA
which would enable them to survive the purity of their own genetic structures.
In other words, they are using humans to breed. We are nothing more than very
precious, semi-conscious livestock. They are watching political events closely
and have told the world’s leaders that they had to either shape up on their own
or face a takeover. The aliens can’t afford to let us destroy ourselves, but they
would prefer that we live freely because freedom, and all the responsibility
that goes with it, generates the strongest strains and widest variety of genes.
However, any genes is better than no genes so they’ve given our leaders an
ultimatum. Either straighten up, or get straightened out.
Q: Did they give them a deadline?
A: Yes. But they wouldn’t tell me. I don’t have a need to
know. All they would say is that time is running out, and that things are
coming to a head. They will reveal themselves to the masses if and when they
must, but they’ll do it gradually so the people can be somewhat prepared for
it. There will be signs. When they do come, some people will be fed up with the
world and welcome them. Others won’t. Since we’re nothing but livestock, I pity
those who won’t. What’s happening in world politics is directly related to
their ultimatum. From their perspective, abortion is the worst crime.
Q: How did they get here?
A: My knowledge of science is too weak to give you a good
answer. All I know is that they’ve learned something about space-time warps and
how to manipulate them. Their spacecraft use a form of energy that has not yet
even become a theory or a dream for human scientists. It has something to do
with the mind. That’s all I can say. We’ve got a lot to learn, and we think we
know so much.
Q: What philosophy or religion is
closest to their own?
A: Orthodox Judaism [she appears of WASPish descent]. The
ancient laws of the Jews were laid down by aliens as rules the herd should live
by, so that they should be fruitful and multiply. It is this tradition that
rings truest to their ears, since it was they who created it for us. Orthodox
Jews today practice pretty much their original religion. One might just say
that the Orthodox of most religions live closest to their teaching.
Q: What about Christianity, Islam,
Buddhism, Native American spirituality?
A: Orthodox Judaism is the purest surviving form of what they
originally taught that has any kind of political influence in the way they
intended. The other religions have all, for the most part, wrongly [implying
that there’s a right way] adapted with the developments of civilization over
time, or perished [adapt, even if it’s wrong!]. Christianity came much later
and was immediately hyper-politicized and popularized by the Romans. It also
tended to tear down cultural differences and mix gene pools, which was alarming
from the alien standpoint of diversity, but nonetheless necessary because the
aliens knew that differences, implacably perceived among the livestock, which
was psychically programmed to remain “pure” for the sake of the survival of its
diverse gene pools, would someday threaten their existence: thus, the queer,
paradoxical alien teaching of Christ [one of them who walked in our shoes] to “love
thy enemy.” Islam focuses too much on authoritarian matters and worldly affairs
with its big and little jihads, and what passes for orthodoxy is really just a
political machine. However, Mohammed was one of them. They used him to put the
rest of the house in order in that region of the world. Buddhism is very close,
and can get you there, it’s the way of the future, but today it lacks the
socio-political organization within the world powers and thus the ability to
fulfill, at least for now anyway, the inherent purpose of the religion given to
them by the aliens: to be creativity
in the population and thus expand its mind, so that it may live peacefully with
itself upon the earth. However, it should be made clear that members of all
religions or spiritual temperaments, especially those individuals whose
sensibilities hearken to the original message [such as those humans who forever
noster with what Chief Seattle called “the seventh generation”—see Jim
Nollman’s Spiritual Ecology], are in
good graces with the aliens. Aboriginal religions are on the mark, and like
Buddhism they are a big part of the future wave but lack the influence of
Judaism, and thus fail to fulfill the global political purposes of all
religions—harmony with the ways of the gods. There is no one true religion, just one that’s closest
in its practice to the original provided by our alien progenitors while
fulfilling its political purposes more than the others. There’s even a debate
between the blacks and greys as to whether or not a culture so strongly
traditional as Orthodox Judaism, and that one so obsessed with purity, might
not be damaging to the general intent of their harvesting the broadest range of
compatible genetic strains. A multiplication of diverse spiritual sentiments is
what they are now harvesting in the abstract, which is very real to them, and
they are extremely pleased with the results of their policy of minimal
interference with close surveillance.
However,
the answer to your question is that Orthodox Judaism is closest in its practice
to the religion they gave us, or at least what I’ve been able to ascertain of
it by observing them and carefully considering what they’ve told me. I have a
feeling, though, that our God is their God and that there is only one God, and
that It definitely exists, and is
indeed bound up in a single reality that includes all of us put together. It is
with God that all consciousness must strive to harmonize itself. Its essence
emerges from its intra-relationships with Itself.
Pray.
Unable
to dismiss the encounter, I brooded alone over it in my Hollywood apartment for
two weeks, unable to work or concentrate. The idea that we were livestock was
unsettling. My misanthropy and sense of poetic justice prevented me from
dismissing her claims, no matter what it meant for me. And what did it mean for
me? All I could feel was a sense that I had been cheapened, lessened. What she
told me was humiliating. It was far worse than when I had originally read Freud
or discovered that very intelligent people, folks much smarter than me or my
parents or my pastor, believed we evolved from apes. I could not assimilate
that information with my arrogance, even though it fit in well with my
self-loathing and hatred of the human race. I guess I really didn’t hate myself
that much, maybe even loved myself a little more for being so
pathetic. My hatred of humanity melted into sympathy. I could empathize. We are
so pathetic. I certainly felt more tolerant toward my fellow humans after that,
for awhile anyway. I came to the conclusion that I could no longer work for
Greenpeace. My self-righteous rage and
mortal fear of environmental suicide had been extinguished, for the time being.
I slowly decided to change the course of my life, and packed this experience
away in the back of my mind, not being able to bear the conscious humility of
it for a prolonged duration, until the month of August some five years later
when the rage and fear had rekindled itself…
How
does one alter instant photographs?
*****
The
response to the discovery of the alien microbe fossils intrigued me. I, myself,
was intellectually stimulated but strangely bereft of any excited emotion [yes,
I’m aware of how that sentence sounds; it’s a fictional voice speaking…sometimes
“bad” writing can be a part of adequate writing]. I guess for me the existence
of microbes in space had become a foregone conclusion. Yet, at the same time,
those for whom it was not a foregone conclusion, seemed to respond with a
similar apathy, which I found unsettling. Why weren’t people more impressed?
Why wasn’t I more impressed? [This question, which I have asked myself many
times, is an example of extreme denial on my part…I still can’t except the idea
that I’m a domesticated stud cow for ETs, my sex life is too lifeless for such
a possibility].
I
think that the main discrepancy in any response to these allegedly alien
exposures is directly related to the difference between intelligent or
conscious life, and non-intelligent or unconscious life. Unfortunately, the
more highly developed a creature’s sentience, the more sensitive humans are to
its existence. Regardless of the fact that plants have plant consciousness, and
beetles have bug consciousness, unless the creature breathes and sleeps as we
do, eats and shits in similar fashion, fucks and dreams in related forms, loves
and hates, fights and plays, makes decisions that serve the pleasures of their
existing senses…we can’t get too excited. To get excited, we need creatures we
can relate to. The more related we are, the more excited we get. Just compare
the difference in pleasure people get, say, in frolicking with dolphins or chimps
in a free but safe environment, and people lining up and paying several
shillings to sniff a giant stinky plant in London. Pleasure is experienced by
both groups, but which seems more exhilarated and why? Could it be that humans
subconsciously envy the unconscious liberation of most of their fellow
creatures, envying most the unconscious ones, thus dismissing them as
afterthoughts in God’s creation [man was created last in Genesis], while
consciously longing for everything to be like them, in their image? Could it be
that our investiture in the quality of our experience is simultaneously a
denial of our lack of ability to grasp reality, and an affirmation of our
conscious desire to live while alive?
What are we humans trying to accomplish in life? What do we, our achievements,
this life-world really mean?
Regardless
of the absurdity of my questions and corresponding assumptions, I believe my
general apathy in response to the discovery of fossilized Martian microbes is
directly proportional to the degree in which I did not experience them. I
received the news of their discovery over television. Whereas I was informed of
the existence of humanoid beings visiting us in flying saucers by an actual
eyewitness, I was not only at the press conference but I was at the scene. This
brings up the second point—relationship. The degree of inter-relationship
between the observers and the observed within an event is directly proportional
to the relator’s [observer’s] level of experience [first-, second- or
third-hand, etc.] [At this point, I could digress on the repercussions of the
Heisenberg Principle to deconstruct the reality of our topic, but I won’t, at
least not in this essay]. The Sierra Madre incident vibrated with
inter-relatedness, whereas ABC News seemed unrelated and distant in comparison.
Of course, I would yawn at such late night news, no matter how dramatic in the
privacy and darkness of my own living room, far, far away…even from my next
door neighbor…
My
primary interest evolved finally to the responses of my fellow humans upon hearing
the news. At about 1 p.m. Wednesday, August 7, President Clinton made a brief
but eloquent statement regarding the discovery and then opened the floor to
questions. The first and only question asked, stunned the President, and
stunned me. Imagine the scene: the President of the United States of America
has just addressed the nation on national television, officially informing us
that strong evidence has been found suggesting that we are not alone in the
universe, he opens the floor to questioning, the reporters have a once in a
lifetime opportunity to ask the leader of the free world, and arguably the
planet, one of the most profound questions ever asked and answered at a pivotal
point in human history…the press jostles to be recognizd by the leader, he
looks searchingly through the crowd, then points to a man in the back,
magnanimously, the President has picked an ordinary Joe to ask this most
momentous question, eagerly, the plebeian queries: “Mr. President, how do you
feel about Senator Dole’s flip-flopping about the abortion plank to the
Republican Party platform in San Diego?” The opportunity was there and the
chance was blown. So be it for Shakespeare on CNN. At least this time [then
again, maybe there is something Shakespearian about it…]. This, coupled with my
86-year-old uncle’s angry intonations later on regarding the bureaucracy of
NASA manufacturing this crap to siphon more money from his wallet, and my
mother’s disgust at hearing of my inordinate interest in the whole thing, led
me to ask myself the questions: Who cares? Why do they care? Who doesn’t care
and why don’t they? What kind of event is truly “earth-shattering” to them? Was
the birth, life, and subsequent crucifixion and alleged resurrection of Christ
“earth-shattering” at the time to most of the planet’s population? What about
Tathagata Buddha’s life, was it “earth-shattering” at the time? Let me take
these questions one-by-one.
Who cares? People with active minds hell bent on
using them care. Hopeless romantics in love and little tramps waiting for Godot
care. So do the paranoid and anxious, the open minded and the childlike,
princes and paupers, mailmen, presidents, cowboys, welfare moms and bankers,
athletes, artists, philosophers and golfers, hunters, chemists,
environmentalists…humans.
Why do they care? Evidence of extraterrestrial life
expands their frontiers immeasurably in a time of severe constraints. Life,
once believed unique to Earth, is actually ubiquitous in the cosmos. Rather
than it being anomalous, it’s routine. Rather than it only emerging here, it
also emerges elsewhere. In fact, it may be trying to emerge everywhere, but can
only find nurture in some places, and among those places only a few can sustain
evolution, and among those yet fewer still witness evolution sustaining itself
to the point that It becomes sentient, and fewer still…but then, when
calculating the size[s] of the universe[s], one comes to the inescapable
conclusion that we are not alone. And our mind expands, we become a bit more
fruitful, and gain a somewhat greater dominion over our precarious existence
here. This is the greatest reason in this world, or any other, to care.
Who, then, doesn’t care, and why don’t
they? People who are
hungry and dis-eased don’t care. People with anger, sorrow, hate, suspicion,
envy, pride, arrogance, ignorance, selfishness… humans, they don’t care. All of
us at one time or another doesn’t care. But just because we don’t care doesn’t
mean it’s not important. Therein lies a seed of tragedy: the failure to see
what’s really important, because we’re human and won’t. The initial response for most people at such times is
intolerance. We tend to treat like with like, adding to our consternation,
rather than reaching for diversity, change and constant flow. Anything that
represents diversity, change and constant flow [perpetual motion] tends to
upset people, so their minds put on the mantle of apathy. The mind will always
seek its pleasure [Freud]. Just look at my response to the flying saucer lady
of Sierra Madre. What’s really good, what’s really important, always seems to
humiliate the worst tendencies in people, and quite often those tendencies
fight back with a vengeance. The best thing is to leave such people alone,
because tomorrow they’re liable to be more open to it, and if not tomorrow, sometime,
elsewhere, they will, and they’ll begin caring. When the human heart is open,
it cares about everything; when it’s mind is open, it’s willing to believe.
What kind of event is actually
“earth-shattering,” and what kind is really people-shattering? People’s lives make sense as stories.
Every adult alive is a walking autobiography. In their heads swirl the stories
of their lives. Their minds [possibly those of most people; the postmodern
mindset is still a minority, but like Buddhism and indigenous spirituality, it
is the wave of the future] construct these stories in traditional, Aristotlean
patterns, filled with binaries and linearities, causes and effects, all
emanating from the consciousness of the thinking-autobiography, its
self-awareness, its hand in writing its own story, and the choices it makes in
doing so. “Human-shattering” events are
those that rupture the perceived material fields of thinking-autobiographies.
The death of a loved one, a divorce, loss of a job, a move…all these things are
“human-shattering” events. They change the story of our lives, our scene
changes, the mood and tone with it. But life on the grand scale continues on
its course as the materials of singular lives are forever altered. But somehow,
when people use the term “earth-shattering,”
it is meant in a more global, or common, sense. This is something difficult for
walking-autobiographies to contend with. It is something that emanates from the
larger context, from the broader current, of the world they occupy. Quite often
events such as these are not immediately felt. How many Cajuns drowned
themselves in the swamp on the stock market crash of 1929? Then again, how did
the Great Depression and the federal programs it necessitated change their
lives in the long run? How many people on earth mourned when Christ was
crucified? How many were enlightened by the teachings of the Buddha when he
lived? These were all, certainly, “earth-shattering” events, but they did not
change the stories of the walking-autobiographies who inhabited the world when
they did.
So
there are two magnitudes, at least, of “earth-shattering” events. An
“earth-shattering” event of the first magnitude, is one that has global
proportions. An “earth-shattering” event of the second magnitude is one of
personal proportions. Both, however, affect each other. The degree to which
they do, of course, depends upon their inter-relatedness and the way in which
their experience is perceived. Ultimately, therefore, all “earth-shattering”
events must be personal and global if they are to be completely
“earth-shattering.” The discovery of possible microbe fossils from Mars is an
“earth-shattering” event of the first magnitude lacking second magnitude
resonance on a personal scale. Therefore, as a star, it has a very bright
surface shine, but seems to lack a certain depth to its radiation. The
excitement, therefore, is primarily intellectual, it is not visceral, rising up
from within. The flying saucer lady of Sierra Madre, however, represents an
“earth-shattering” of the first magnitude that is almost overwhelmed by it
second magnitude, or personal significance. Any way you look at it, the very
real existence of extraterrestrial life is “earth-shattering.” The degree to
which it is so, varies from person to person. Denial of the truth of others,
who come from elsewhere, is a lie we can no longer live with.
So,
the real questions are: How “earth-shattering” will the discovery of possible
ET fossils from Mars be in the long run? How “earth-shattering” did it prove to
be when the sun no longer revolved around a flat plain of land surrounded by
Ocean? The answers to these questions, though obvious, take time. Lots of it.
No one singular discovery ever changed the wholesale view of mankind. It always
took a series of discoveries, each with its own magnitude, to conjure up the
emergence of a new reality, of a new world, of a new mind. Could these fossils
just be the beginning of a chain of discoveries that will definitely conclude
that we are not alone?
CONCLUSION
Any
way you look at it, the very real possibility of extraterrestrial life is
“earth-shattering.” The degree to which it changes reality varies from person
to person.
However,
the same isn’t true of global warming. It’s a fact, not a possibility. It’s
actually human shattering. Edward Abbey wrote that you can’t change human
nature without mutilating human beings. But that’s what evolution is:
constructive mutiliation.
Death
is the fundamental fact of life. Denial of this truth, like the denial of the
truths of others who come from elsewhere, is a denial we can no longer live
with.
I
hope the best is yet to come. But it won’t be if we won’t stop lying to
ourselves about ourselves.
A
new truth awaits us, and it’s more beautiful than we’ve ever dreamed…
Stay
tuned.
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