What Would A Martian Say?
Ever think about what it might be like to land in a space ship in Times Square, and hear people talk about the Giants, and how 3rd Rock won the Emmy.
Ever think about what it might be like to land in a space ship and watch people driving BMWs pick their nose at red lights, or pull out these funny little machines, that look like calculators, and start tap, tap, tapping away in some kind of re- morse code?
Ever think about what it might be like to land in the middle of a battlefield with soldiers,
and tanks---missiles, and rockets----all manner of weaponry, and get out of the space ship only to find
that the people you're firing at look just like you?
Why is it that peace often seems as far away as another galaxy while war is always close at hand.
How is it we find water on the moon, and drought in the county next door. Someday--who knows---we may need that water cause we seem to have depleted much of our own.
For now, we console ourselves with the thought that an "illegal alien" is someone without proper documentation to be called a neighbor while we ravage that which can rightly be called a neighborhood.
Keywords:
About Jayne
My full name is Jayne Lyn Stahl.
Widely published poet, and essayist---Huffington Post blogger, with screenplay, "Shakespeare & Company," that tells the story of Sylvia Beach's struggle to publish James Joyce's "Ulysses," currently in development.
...
Connections
Causes Jayne Stahl Supports
Free Speech, human rights, and abolition of the death penalty.
Jayne’s Favorite Books
"Crime and Punishment," Fyodor Dostoyevsky "Ulysses," James Joyce "Dead Souls," Gogol "The Trial," Franz Kafka "Thus Spake Zarathustra," Friedrich Nietzsche "...
Consider our Findings on Mars
Jayne,
Yeah it's me again. Another good one! :)
Yes I have wondered....many of those things. I've taken it even a step further. Consider Mars. We are finding ice just below the surface, indicating at one time that there was water ON the surface. The atmosphere is filled with Carbon Dioxide. Mars is a wasteland and man is compelled to explore it.
Perhaps there is more to it than that. Perhaps man is much like a salmon going back to where it came from. What if WE are the martians. What if we've already screwed up one planet, and now that we are doing it again, we have this need to "seek out new life, and new civilizations".
Earth is fast reaching the point where our own natural resources will not be enough to sustain us. It's happening in Africa. It happened already on Easter Island. Yet man continues to operate in a way where he feels he's invincible. What would a Martian say indeed? He'd say, you fools, you're doing it again!
Great point Jayne!
Keep writing. I'll keep reading! :)
Raymond
enjoyed this post
I read your blog frequently, though I rarely make the time to comment. (Sorry!) Thanks for your writing and your fierce commitment to peace and other good things.
"(Re)morse code"!!! Ha!! : )
I don't know if anyone here
I don't know if anyone here has seen the History Channel series, "Life after People", but it shows just how fast things revert back to nature when left on their own.
You can see that on a small scale up here. Back in about 1906, the town of Circle City, about 100 miles north of here had 10,000 people, the largest town in Alaska at the time. It was abandoned after the gold ran out. Now, there is no sign of human habitation, other than a few piles of rocks and a nearby Indian village of around 60 souls....it's mostly returned to birch forest. And Interior Alaska isn't exactly the garden state...it's not like it's surrounded by lush foliage just waiting to take over....it's pretty much tundra! In a greener region, this reversion would be even faster.
Eric
Many thanks...
for the uplifting, and insightful comments Raymond, Evie, and Eric.
It does my heart good to see these.
Raymond--knowing that someone reads what I write inspires me to write more.
Evie---you and I are on the same page, and thank you for all your good work for peace and social justice, too!
and Eric, right you are about the planet. Humankind is too meglomaniacal to realize just how fast the planet will revert to its default position, survival, once we leave it, and we will very soon at the rate we're going.
Anyone see that 150 lb. 9 foot dinosaur whose bones were recently discovered? Well, in about 500 years, people will be looking at our remains much the same way. It's up to us not to go down the road to extinction. Nuclear war is a shortcut on that road.
Will keep writing as long as you keep reading.
Warmest best,
Jayne