An exercise
October 16th
An exercise in writing, that is. Recently, I have been reading A LOT of sci-fi books again and an idea struck me. A story of the first contact. I know — very clichéd, but this time told from the perspective of the alien civilization that meets, either by design or by chance, us. How would that look and how we would present ourselves as human species? How would an alien race react to our foibles and creativity and altruism and downright stupidity and violence that are integral parts of our global society? Would they understand the dichotomy of democracy and cult of personality prevalent in the world today? Would they understand the connection between greed and widespread poverty on our globe? Would they understand the creative drive behind art and humor and the spectacles of professional sports? How would they see it and react to it, and what would they make of it?
That leads me to another point — human history. How would we be able to present our common global history to an alien race in a way that would make sense? No matter how to look at any part of history, starting from any localization and any time — to make sense it would have to be framed in a global view. And what would the reaction be to the insanity and cruelty and inequality and brutality and dirtiness of our history? That concerns any history of any country or nation or ethnic group at any time since the first social groups were formed at the time of the Last Ice Age. Of course, we could lie, or whitewash it, but then there would be no continuity that is required by a historical timeline. Or we could concentrate on achievements — in art and literature and music, and technological advancements of recent times (although it seems like all of them, be it the internet, Wi-Fi, GPS, and other conveniences of our lives, were derivatives of military developments meant to have an easy and clean way to kill multitudes).
I guess that is another idea that will go into my “one day, you will see that one day I will actually do something about it” pile. I suffer from a chronic lack of time to do all I want, and it seems that there's nothing I can do about it now. Maybe I can downsize my needs?
