Mostly stationary

They have traveled across star systems and whole galaxies to visit us here. Traveled through every imaginable dream scene, every astro-physical feature, and every quirk and quark of inner and outer space. They have passed through all of the realms of what the imagination has to offer. Although it is a most beautiful place, it is not for the scenery that they have come.

It is not for the coffee, the chocolate or the cream cakes. Nor is it for the snazzy paintings or the exquisite gardens. It is not for the creative flair or the breadth of the emotional response of the earthlings that live here. It is not even for Beethoven, Bach or Stravinsky that they have come. They have come because they want to see for themselves the strange things that are happening here on planet earth. They want to understand us, the human species, and how we function. They want to know about the scenery of our hearts and the voices in our heads. They want to know what motivates us and why we make the choices that we do.

They have seen this planet of ours moving unevenly in the sky. It seems to be taking a strange course. Rolling on its axis, shuddering and wobbling. There appears to be a bit of a smudge around it and a groaning sound can be heard emanating from it – if not from its inhabitants then from the planet itself.

These visitors have come such a long way, to find themselves arriving at a convoluted and deluded world. Every imaginable illness afflicts the inhabitants. There are many who are relatively well, but those most affected by madness seem to set the course for the society and culture. They turn their ailments and mind discharges into rigidly held beliefs, each inverted, perverted and converted into anything but the simple truth of life. The same rigid beliefs that are imposed on the populace and enforced by the most cruel and brutal perpetrators of belief systems who present themselves. A trap is created, from which few of those who are caught in it would break free. So thus the course is set, that all in the planet must follow. It is a very strange place, this planet earth.

Great edifices have been constructed, dedicated to confabulation and discombobulation, with whole populations led away from any genuine and worthwhile purpose. Even those who stand quite thoroughly for good have been tricked and confused. In being led the opposite way they also take many others with them.

The worst thing is that it all seems acceptable – okay and alright. Even as the rebellious members awaken from their slumber of souls, they find that each and every person is actively holding and maintaining the whole edifice that holds them captive on whatever spot it is that they stand. The rebels are trapped as much as any other. Together as a group they hold their great tangled prison together, and have refined it to the point where it appears as being so natural and normal that no obvious alternative way of organising their lives is known.

Our interstellar anthropologists might be tempted to pack-up their notebooks and kinship charts and find another lonely planet to observe. They needn't go far, for there are others in the vicinity that would suit an idle academic purpose. But they have a special calling for this earth, this lump of rock and its captive population.

They could hide in the clouds, or further up in the sky, and watch from there. They could set up their living quarters within the earth. They could even dress like the natives and walk unnoticed among the crowds. Apart from the difficulties in being immersed in an atmosphere of flummoxedness, this close view is the best of them all. It is the view that we would choose if we were to undertake such a study.

In the crowd, the flummoxedness becomes much exaggerated, to the detriment of all. Everyone is so nice and so harmless, and yet the planet shudders from the combined effect of their presence. All are so beautiful and seem so good, and yet ill winds blow and troubles prevail. The lowest result is gained from the highest potential.

Flummoxedness has, it would seem, become the primary way of being. The natives all busily toil away, not seeming to make much progress in life. For the passage of every one or two thousand years, and for all of the endless effort and activity, things still seem to remain more or less the same. The surroundings and styles shift and change, but the whole purpose of everything remains somewhat skewed towards a vision of individual hopelessness set against a backdrop of permanent collective decline.

Perhaps we could all learn to fly. Perhaps just flying a bit at first, then increasing the length of our voyages, eventually flying beyond the day and beyond the night. Through the milky way and into the dark rift. We could search and search to find where it is that we came from. Searching the many places and searching empty space too. To find where we truly come from. Finding tribes and civilisations where hundreds and thousands of years have passed in undisturbed calm. Where balance and harmony were found aeons ago, and where peace and  sanity have been allowed to flourish.

Out there in the furtherest reaches of the sky, the ailments that ill the heart remain the same. After having departed the home planet and leapt across vast reaches of space and time, the heart isn't helped one bit in curing its afflictions. So it should be addressed during its transit across the sky, if not before. Even when passing through bumps and turbulence it can be tended-to and returned to its state of wholesomeness once more. So too of those who traveled so far to visit us here. Both they and we not wishing to arrive nor depart in anything but prime condition.

Here on this earth, the people look up into the sky with all of the strength that they can gather. Stars and planets and moons for as far and as long as the eye can see. Seeing all of the phenomena that there is to see, it appears that no-one is home, and that it is home to none. That is what the eyes see, and what the scene seems to say. A big vacant space until the end of eternity. That and us. Us and only us. How strange it is that such a thing would be.

That being so, the visitors will eventually pack-up their things and return to their place in the sky. They have seen all that they need to see here, and all that they want to. They have seen more than they wanted to. They have reminded themselves of how things can be, and that is all that is needed. Back to their world they go, with their kinship charts, their lists of objects, and their renderings of complex cultural conventions. They have seen our world, what is done by the human species, and why and how it is done. They have seen all of the subsequent results of everything that is done too. It is a priceless education to them, for they can see it all without having to partake in it. They can confidently say to their young ones – 'if you do that, then this is how things will be'. Having seen the evidence, who amongst their young would feel compelled to try for themselves.