 |
About This Site
Daily Musings
News
News Archive
Site Resources
FAQ
Screenshots
Concept Art
Halo 2 Updates
Interviews
Movies
Music
Miscellaneous
Mailbag
HBO PAL
Game Fun
The Halo Story
Tips and Tricks
Fan Creations
Wallpaper
Misc. Art
Fan Fiction
Comics
Logos
Banners
Press Coverage
Halo Reviews
Halo 2 Previews
Press Scans
Community
HBO Forum
Clan HBO Forum
HBO IRC Channel
Links
Admin
Submissions
FTP Uploads
HTTP Uploads
Contact
|
|
|
Human Nature
Posted By: Harbringer352<nank4@digitalpath.net>
Date: 5 March 2010, 3:59 am
Read/Post Comments
|
Look up at the stars and imagine the people.
Think about how your little star, Sol, has eight other planets around it. With your little Earth, so safely nestled in the star-encrusted black velvet of this universe. Your little Earth, with your humans and your culture and your ignorance.
Your humans look up and see the stars and fathom only the obvious. There must be life out there. And you send out those primitive radio waves that have no hope of reaching anyone intelligible. Did you know this? No, I don't expect you do.
Look up at the stars and imagine the people.
Somewhere, beyond where human eyes can perceive, lies another place. A place quite like your Earth; with a sun and some planets. One of the planets is blue, with a candy coating of green and a frosting of white clouds. It looks like your Earth, doesn't it?
But you haven't even seen the people yet.
There they are – walking about in their separate lives, completely preoccupied with their short, pointless lives. Do you see how they don't even notice you?
Go, try to catch their conversations. You can't, can you? No. They can't hear us.
Depressing, isn't it.
I could spend hours showing you these planets. I could spend a millennia showing you the other universes.
Yes, the other universes. You don't honestly believe you're the only ones? Oh, you do?
Please, don't let me stop you. Carry on in your ignorance.
But look up at the stars, and imagine any one of them can be the heart of another life.
With cultures and religions and ideas we can't even imagine. They could have two legs, three legs, maybe even five eyes and two noses. Maybe what we perceive as light is what they perceive as darkness. They could honor gods that could only exist on other worlds; somewhere, out there, someone is fighting. A war is happening, being fought for unknown reasons, possibly against their will. Perhaps they battle for their rights, or for their gods, or maybe they don't even know. Imagine living there, on another planet, looking up at the stars and not being able to recognize the star systems. Perhaps from your backyard, on that foreign world, you can see the Milky Way galaxy. Perhaps they look up and wonder who could possibly exist on another planet. They wonder what's out there, like you do now.
Do you see your world as heaven? A place you are happy to live, content to fill out your days blissfully unaware of other places? You look up, you chance a look up, and see a smattering of stars, but no thought crosses your mind. But in every human there is that basic instinct to journey out, to find new lands, to seek adventure and danger and victory. This is your basic instinct, the core of human personality and psyche. More base than the need to feed, or multiply. It is the need to keep moving, because for some reason we never feel entirely rooted to one spot. Nomads of old culture, always searching for that greener pasture, a place where it might be better. Who says we aren't all nomads, searching for that promised land?
In the days of old great men and women looked to the stars and could never place that feeling of homesickness. Even now, a man in San Francisco looks up for a moment and forgets his hurry to his small, insignificant office. He sees the stars and a gaping feeling starts in his gut; he may dismiss it, he may embrace it.
Looking up, a woman on a farm in Iowa can see the night sky as if though a glass display window. She is partial to coming out here to feel small and insignificant against the mystery of the stars.
Another man, a scientist of great worth, looks skyward and frowns in contemplation. Can we honestly be the only ones in this universe?
No, it is impossible. We are nomads, searching for another, greener pasture, a place of adventure and danger. We seek honor and knowledge, we seek a sense of self only we can achieve. One day, we, humanity, want to stand in the middle of a field on a distant world and look up at the sky and not recognize the stars.
Look up at the stars and imagine the people. Imagine, that on some distant world, a sun is shedding a glorifying, warming light upon that waking world, and the people open their eyes and welcome this light. Somewhere, on a distant world, two children look up at the sky and wonder if someone out there is wondering what it's like here.
Do you think we'll ever meet them?
They hope so. Don't you?
|
