Why Do We Search? Is It Part of Being Human?

What is it about us, which will not let us accept the world around us for what it is, that drives us to explore every nook, every cranny of our world and not let it rest until defined, categorized and neatly wrapped up in a little package with a bow?

Why do we find ourselves wishing for, even desiring that ships full of Aliens descend upon us and spirit us away from the comfort of our tiny little personal universes we call home? What drives us to hope that some Alien Entity will swoop down from the heavens above and rescue us from our fears?

Are these Aliens we seek the same as the Angels, Demons and God’s sought by our ancestors in era’s past? Is a need for these Beings encoded in our genes and as much a part of us as our big toes?

We see a volcano erupt or feel the power of an earthquake or a storm and even though we know what it is and what causes it, we are still frightened by it and stand in awe at the power of the forces around us.

As we view the world around us, we begin to feel helpless and weak and wonder what can "I", as just another speck on the landscape, do to control the world that surrounds me? We feel helpless, as did our contemporaries from our not so distant past, before modern science and technology arrived to expose the folly of our fears. Even though we know we should not be fearful of these now explained events, we are fearful.

We begin to search around us for other answers to explain our fears and it is within our nature to assign them to anything our logical minds can not categorize or explain.

We see a simple light in the sky that does not register in our minds as anything we can explain or file in a drawer under "that is a ______" category. Until we know what it is, it lies in the backs of our mind as an unknown and we fear the unknown. Our minds chew it over and over again; is it an unknown enemy aircraft, is it an Alien from another world visiting us and for what reason. Does it mean us harm or is it perhaps our salvation from ourselves.

Until we find that answer, it will haunt us and our dreams, even when we pretend to ourselves that it does not. If we find that answer it will only be replaced by yet another mystery, another fear to fill that void in our psyche. That fear and insatiable desire to pursue the unknown is as much a part of us as the skin that encases us.

It is the same part of us that leads us to explore our world, our universe and how it all works. Science owes its existence to that part of us that just won't let it lay and accept things how they are. Instead we must investigate, prod, poke, question and dissect, until we know the answer. When we find that answer we move on inexorably to the next question, the next fear.

ATS exists because of this part of us that just won’t let things go. It thrives and flourishes because there will always be unanswered questions about the world around us. We will always need to know what that shadow was moving across the wall where it should not have been. What are they doing inside that fence where we are not allowed and we can not see? What lies under our feet in the bowels of the earth? What exists beyond our view in the infinity of the universe?

As long as these mysteries exist, we will hunger for the answers to their existence. Is this hunger in fact the key to our survival? Would we fail as a species without this thirst? Is it part of a price we paid for replacing our brute force with an advanced intellect? It would seem so.

KJV
Act 2:17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
Act 2:18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:
Act 2:19 And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:

Are we so much different than those who wrote this? Are our Aliens the same as their Angels, Demons and Gods?


[edit on 9/18/2008 by Blaine91555]