“The creator does everything through his creation, that is, through beings like you and I. It is rather like a teacher letting her work speak for itself through the accomplishments of her students. It is difficult to offer a realistic analogy because, in this example, the teacher and the students would have to be different aspects of the same entity. This is not something that is commonly found in the Human experience.
Another imperfect example that may nonetheless help you understand the beliefs of my people is a biologist examining a sample of her own tissue through a microscope. If the microscope is powerful enough, the biologist will see an entire world unfolding before her eyes within each living cell. She will be astounded by its incredible complexity, and by the sheer elegance and simplicity of the underlying principles that govern it. She will have no desire to interfere with it, but will simply feast her eyes on the splendor of her own being.”
“That is a very interesting analogy. If you were to approach your recognized professions as you do parenting, its shortcomings would become apparent to you in no time at all. Take civil engineering, for instance. A person needs to study for many years in order to acquire the theoretical knowledge that is required in this field. Once they have the appropriate academic background, they typically spend several years working under the guidance of one or more experienced engineers before they are allowed to take responsibility for the structural soundness of a building. Even then, they will not be entrusted with a state-of-the art skyscraper until they have demonstrated competence with more basic structures.
With parenting, on the other hand, you basically acknowledge that a person is qualified to perform this function by the virtue of being physiologically able to bear children. Theoretical knowledge is useful, but not necessary. Practical experience is a bonus that only subsequent children benefit from. This despite the fact that child rearing is fundamentally more important than any other profession, including civil engineering. The challenges that you are likely to face when raising children are also many times more complex than anything that you can reasonably expect to encounter when constructing buildings.”
“What changed?” Amber was almost depressed that the present-day economy did not resemble this one in any significant way.
Nathan took note of her question and continued. “With the growth of population and the introduction of a state, things became complicated. The present day economy is arguably more complex than it has been for the lifetime of your current civilization. It poses formidable challenges to the contemporary social structure.
For example, communities are much larger than they used to be. This gives rise to greater redundancy of individuals who constitute them. It also places greater strain on the environment in order to support them.
With the availability of mass transportation, communities no longer need to be self-reliant. This further reduces the dependence on any single individual. The resulting interdependencies significantly complicate the internal operation of these communities.
The number of professions that one can specialize in has grown tremendously. The same is true of their interdependencies. This has complicated the economy to such an extent that its very focus has been shifted from producing wealth to generating profit.
These factors have conspired to create an environment where cause is greatly separated from visible effect. This gives rise to problems on a number of different levels. Perhaps the most obvious among these was the emergence of unemployment and crime. This was something that the Stone Age economy had no notion of.
It is also difficult for contemporary Humans to view their contribution to the community as indispensable. There are a number of reasons for this. There are many people who have the same skills and can therefore take their place. The same goods and even services can often be acquired from other parts of the country or imported from other countries. The usefulness of their contribution is often not visible. The contribution of the unemployed is also not desired.
It is difficult to anticipate the impact that a failure, or even a mere change, in one aspect of the economy will have on all the others. A whole field of economics has emerged in an attempt to answer this question. It is a field where more than one view on any burning question is often expressed, sometimes even by the most authoritative figures.
The size and complexity of the economy has made it possible for people, organizations and even whole industries to “hide in the system” – to live off the contributions of others without contributing anything themselves, without this being readily apparent. I have already pointed out this unproductive aspect of your economy.
The speed and scale of modern transportation has made it easy to exploit natural resources at most locations across your planet. This makes it difficult to appreciate the need for sustainable exploitation of any single resource at any single location, as well as for making this exploitation ecologically friendly.
It should be easy to see that, unlike their Stone Age counterparts, present-day people have no easy way of understanding the effect that their work has on the community as a whole. This may even lead them to wonder why it is needed at all.”
He got up and walked to a nearby wall unit that housed a tape recorder. It was the only one the family owned. Amber was its main user. She was the only family member who made compilations of music that she liked and often used during her dancing practices. He didn’t know what tape was currently inside, but he hoped that it was something they could dance to. Otherwise he would have to resort to asking her to provide a piece of music suitable for the occasion. This would only give her more time to change her mind and back out.
He wasn’t disappointed. The soft sounds of music that started resonating through the speakers belonged to one of Amber’s favorite ballads. Even he found himself enthralled by the peculiar Human tune. It was crafted to evoke powerful emotions from the audience. He had no idea how he was going to dance to these exotic sounds, but he was determined to find a way.
He looked in Amber’s direction and extended his hand. She was flustered. Dancing was close to her heart. Dancing to a poignant ballad was even more personal. She couldn’t recall anyone other than her dancing partner sharing the steps to these kinds of songs for over a year. The thought that a complete stranger from a few weeks ago could play this role left her flushed and confused.
Ever since he first appeared in her family’s midst, she has treated Nathan with a certain amount of reserve. He took on the guise of a drifter at first, the kind of person that no one they knew wanted to associate with. This elicited complete detachment in their behavior towards him. Later, when he revealed himself to be an extraterrestrial visitor, their treatment of him changed to reveal a great deal of respect, but the distance remained. It was one caused by unfamiliarity and respect rather than derision – they all believed his far-fetched claims to some degree. Either way, it did not even occur to her to perceive him as an ordinary young man that his Human body suggested him to be.
Seeing him standing there awkwardly with his arm outstretched, she suddenly realized that there was no real reason for the distance that had grown between them. Even if all his claims were true and he was indeed a being from another world, he still resembled a Human in many ways. He cared deeply for their world. He had needs and desires, and his own preferred ways of doing things. In this he was no different from any other person she knew. And judging by the awkwardness of his stance, he had no idea how to dance.
She made the few short steps towards him and reached for his hand. His grasp was firm, but without direction. It suddenly occurred to her that he didn’t even know a proper starting posture, let alone the subsequent steps. Whilst holding his right hand with her left, she guided his left hand to her waist, then rested her right hand on his shoulder. She stood there like that for a moment, letting the rhythm of her body adjust to the sound of the music. Then she moved to merge with it.
“Watch my steps and try to follow!” she directed him.
Her feet shifted with decisive yet elegant movements. Her whole body flowed with the rhythm of the song. He was amazed how flawlessly her movements matched the unfamiliar sounds of the tune. Their grace was comparable to that of professional dancers back home. It wasn’t an equal comparison because the abilities of the Human and Zenoid bodies weren’t quite the same, but it did attest to the wealth of dancing talent that Amber possessed, as well as her obvious love for the activity.
What astounded him even more was the fact that she still had the capacity to consider his unfamiliarity with the dance. She watched him, then his feet, waiting for them to emulate hers and trace the required steps. He was again grateful that the song he stumbled upon was a ballad – its pace was gentle enough and the dance simple enough for him to get to grips with in only a few attempts.
Following the steps was one thing; executing them in nimble and elegant fashion quite another. He had never been much of a dancer. He struggled to lose his self-consciousness in the rhythmic pulse of a Zenoid song. It was doubly difficult within the confines of a Human body. The novelty of it may have worn off within the context of normal daily activities, but dancing was an altogether different proposition.
Amber noticed the stiffness of his posture. She had experienced this before with other dancing partners, when they were new, as well as in competitions, when stakes were high. Her recent debacle was a painful reminder of the fact that no one, not even her, was immune to its influence. She relaxed even more in an effort to help him relax. She stopped watching him or the movement of his feet. Instead she drew closer and sought to rest her head on his shoulder. He was too tall for her, so she settled for pressing it against his chest.
A myriad of emotions coursed through him. Her pulling close helped his dancing. She had more control over his movements. This helped improve his poise. Not being watched also helped him loosen up. From being a trainee under observation, he felt that he graduated into a genuine dancing partner. The added confidence helped him actually move along the path to this metamorphosis. But this was not the only effect that her closeness had on him.
The sudden intimacy aroused him. The reaction was so unexpected, it startled him. Until then he has viewed Humans the same way as pretty much any other species, sentient or not, that he has come across – with curiosity and fascination. They all intrigued him. Their physiology, social patterns, mental abilities and countless other features provided for an inexhaustibly rich and diverse field of study. But all these species were always unconsciously placed on the other side of the safety barrier.
Amber had just crossed that line. No longer was she merely an interesting study subject, the fascination with whom was limited to intellectual and emotional pursuits. She has touched him in a way that was decidedly personal. His body responded in kind. His mind knew that he was not sexually attracted to her, but his body did not. Never before were the cracks in his integration with the Human body so vividly exposed.
He was in turmoil. The experience was debilitating. The rift between his sensing and reasoning faculties was so pronounced that he was unable to function as a single being. His body was sexually stimulated by her presence; his mind was repulsed by the body’s reaction. He spent the remainder of the dance oscillating between these two states, dancing like a worthy partner during moments of attraction, and a self-conscious stiff whenever his mind’s cries of revulsion came to the fore.
Amber’s question reminded him just how different their viewpoints were. His gaze towards them softened, thanks to a renewed awareness of the trials and tribulations that still awaited them.
“I can only imagine how much you must wish to live in the society that I have described to you, given the one that you find yourselves in now. I do not pretend to understand how difficult you must envisage the desired transformation to be, facing it when only the first tentative steps have been taken. I was born after a similar transformation was effectively completed by my people, when most of the remnants of the old order were already dismantled. I have not experienced their dismantling first-hand. My knowledge of the metamorphosis of my own society comes entirely from the study of our history, and that of other societies that have undergone alterations that were similarly breathtaking in scale and accomplishment.
What I can tell you based on all the material that I have studied is that the change you desire will not take place by accident. It is not the next natural step in the unconscious evolution of your species. You will have to pursue it actively in order to achieve tangible results. To do this, you must never lose sight of the fact that it is well within your grasp.
Nor are you alone in this quest. You can draw on the wealth of experience from people like us, whose ancestors have wrestled with similar adversities and emerged victorious. We are here to guide you in every way that we can. Some of us have even died in your ancestors’ persecutions, hoping that our example will be of value to you.
When you succeed in your own transformation, we will be here to rejoice with you. At that point we will welcome you to our cosmic community. Then you will comprehend the true potential of this world and all that it was meant to be. Citizens of the universe, you will call yourselves then. No matter how many pitfalls you may encounter, how many ill-conceived attempts at self-annihilation you may have to recover from, we will be watching, guiding, and waiting for you.
Until that day.”