Down to Earth

Sometimes.. I question the intellect of our leaders. Not that I’m Einstein by any means.. but I find our collective governments’ obsession with outer space puzzling. Looks like we’ve dialled down a little on the search for alien life forms, or at least we’re spending a little less on it than we were a decade ago. However, the focus hasn’t diminished, only shifted. Now we’re looking for other habitable planets, presumably to set up Plan B for when we’re done trashing our own place. Even if we could set up some kind of Brave New World someplace else, wherever we go.. as they say in the classics... there we are! - humans ready to keep on making the same old mistakes.

Many people believe that there MUST be other life forms out there, since the universe is so crazy big that the odds are in favour. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Either way, doesn’t it strike you as overly naive that we actually WANT to meet other creatures? Speaking of odds, what are the odds that those guys would be friendly? If you ask me, any aliens that made the arduous trip over to our galaxy are most likely doing it for conquest or for research. Either way that makes us bugs to be squashed or pinned to a board. Our earthly explorers of old were just looking to make friends with the natives... right? (Answer for those not au fait with history: No, they slaughtered the indigenous inhabitants and took the land.)

I’m not being paranoid, just practical. Take a look at us creatures for example. We have spent most of our history attacking and arguing with each other over greed for property and power. We’ve done irreparable damage to the planet in the process.  Why is it that we think any other species of creature would be any more altruistic? Why are we convinced that we’d be able to defend ourselves from life forms that found us and wanted to eat/annihilate/overtake us?

Where did we get the romantic idea that we’d most likely want to be friends with those aliens? We treat any of our own species who displays any kind of smidgeon of difference as freaks, weirdos and or outcasts. Since when are we so keen to embrace anyone not exactly like ourselves?

So meanwhile, here we are, like Red Riding Hood in the middle of the dark forest calling out sweetly..”Hello, anyone out there?” ...

wondering

Have you ever really thought about why you like.. any particular thing? Why do some foods make you drool? Why do some things mean more to you than others? Why do you like blue, or red, or mint green?

I do. I wonder about things like that. Cherries for example. Why do I adore cherries over say, strawberries? Why do I like to be kissed some places more than others?

Cherries is a simple one to practice such thinking on. Cherries are sweet, I like that. But they’re tangy too. Sometimes they have a little bite. They’re juicy as ... yeah. That. They come in so many rich shades of red, and the smooth shiny skin is beautifully simple with just one definite valley curving into a tidy stem. Cherries gravitate.. to other cherries, often found in pairs, kissing on the tree.

Cherry is to the senses what water is to the fish -  an all encompassing immersion in perception, a complete sensual experience, no receptor neglected. The cherry is satisfaction from all angles. A cherry demands your attention. No quick tasteless gulp is possible, since the pit anchors the eater to caution, to assiduous and thorough mastication lest it choke the glutton with purple stained vengeance. Cherries are serious fruit indeed, and paradoxically frivolous.

Perhaps it is all, or any one of these traits that finds favour with my choice. Maybe my first cherry was consumed on a cloudless day, and they have proclaimed summer to my imagination ever since? Surely a berry with such dark blood must have sprung from the fertile sweat of love’s inception! It is hard to conceive that Eve’s apple could have been more appealing.

I shall continue to wonder, looking for clues to my loves, my likes, my preferences. Why you? Why me? Something to ponder while I sit at the end of the jetty, demolishing my little handful of perfect maroon orbs.. spitting the pips into the lake. They make such a shy treble plip as they splash-land.