We Are Only Human

The spaceships arrived last year. Not the flying saucers of myth, no, these were a mere shimmer. A ripple in the sunlight dancing with the colours of the rainbow. And as they floated above each hamlet, each city, each continent, the world held its breath. 

For weeks, months, nothing happened. They just stayed there, those formless oceans of beautiful light. We knew they were aliens. What else could they be? And their existence became a new normal for the world. 

Doomsday cults coalesced around men and women with shiny hair, sparkling teeth. Preachers of religion - pick a religion, any religion - spat sermons about divine miracles, exhorting their flocks to prayer and penance. Scientists scribbled dissertations to be presented at hastily arranged conferences. World leaders made contingency plans in event of an alien invasion, signing pacts they would inevitably ignore. The wealthy built bunkers. And the world's militaries grew. 

It's almost funny. Think of the weight of our creative history - the immense volume of information, insight, imagery and intelligence we've generated. From scratches on a cave wall to the nocturnes of a Nabokov novel, we've iterated and grown. An infinity of individuals has built on one another, moving humanity ever forward. Forward towards what, no one knows. But it is a vector, this momentum, this yearning we humans have for more, that makes us think and create.

And despite this individual genius, our actions as a collective invariably distill down to the same clichés. Our boundless imagination as individuals exposes how sorely we lack any as a species.

So yes, when the spaceships arrived, humanity reacted as it always does when people feel insecure - we pulled together in ways constructive and destructive. 

And we prepared to fight.