October 10, 2001
R.D. Kushner

For years now, as I lay in bed at night waiting for my brain to create the first peculiar distortions of reality which would ultimately introduce me to sleep, I have yearned for the discovery of little green men. Sometimes even during the day, as I walk the streets staring into the open, vacant eyes of strangers I wonder; what kind of world did they expect [if any] and what kind of strange catharsis would occur if they were told we were not alone.

And more importantly, what would happen to the idea of God. It seemed to me the kind of internal upheaval that would lay bare both every human fear and every dream; to know that our existence and our consciousness had company within the endless vacuum of time and space. I would laugh when I thought about the religious leaders trying to fit little green men into their thousand-year-old doctrines of human creation. Virgin births, primordial gardens, the Creator dividing light from darkness and darkness from light, and prophets periodically in conclave with the ear of Almighty. All these stories serve as signs of our historic self-importance to the master plan. And now this plan would have to accommodate little green men; how superb it would be to discover them, or for them to discover us.

All the importance invested in the casting of a vote in Congress, a debate in the house of commons, the issuance of a fatwah, a meeting between judge and jury in a courtroom, an argument among strangers over the price of a bolt of fabric in a market: the daily routine of the governing and the governed, of the leaders and the lead, and of the rulers and the ruled. Routines so benign and redundant as to become habitual reflexes that undermine the colossal task of human enlightenment; the price paid for order over chaos.

But those little green men would change all that. And now I think we need them more than ever. Little green men, even just a few of them would do. They would make our differences look so small. We would be humans, and they would be... something else; and we would be afraid of course, but we would have each other. Islam would consult the Talmud and Judaism would espouse the Koran, Christianity would revel in the Tripitaka and Buddhism would exalt the Bible. And all our self-importance and self-indulgence would lead us together not apart. We would ask, not what makes us so different, but what make us so much alike.

We all have hunger and thirst, we all get cold and tired, we all feel pain and ecstasy, we all cry and mourn, we all laugh and smile. Our human-centric world would start taking on a new momentum; we would embellish the idea, that we are truly unique organic creations of self-consciousness, with a program of enlightenment worthy of this truly extraordinary world which we share with each other and with little green men. And the belief that our Earthly paradise is a masterful and brilliant creation for our exploitation would be replaced with knowing that we share our consciousness with other animals and beings perhaps more extraordinary than ourselves.

But maybe we know that already. Is not the soaring bird aloft on invisible waves of liquid air more extraordinary than ourselves? Is not the steadfast loyalty of the common canine which approaches, wide eyed and tail wagging [the tail wags with happiness... incontrovertible proof not only that there must be a God, but that God has a sense of humor], more extraordinary than ourselves? Is not the architectural toil of an arachnid creating structure out of its own body more extraordinary than ourselves? Is not the stoic presence and the life-giving oxygenation of any rough bark-covered deciduous flora, and the shade it affords under its lofty boughs, more extraordinary than ourselves? And is not the constant passing of cool rippled water along the muddy banks of a river, as it is drawn by a force so immense that it also sets our Earth in a slow continuous circle around the sun, more extraordinary than ourselves?

No. These things are not more extraordinary than ourselves. We are equally as extraordinary as each of these wonderful, magical, beautiful things.

I think if the little green men arrived, we would begin to notice these things, and a new understanding would emerge and a new tolerance and respect for one another and the world around us.

I hope we find those little green men soon; or I hope they find us.