SciFi, Really?

Somebody asked me once, “So you like SciFi?” I was about to shake my head and vehemently say “No!” I’m not a StarTrek fan. I don’t even like Star Wars. I then did a little mind inventory:

Favorite TV show: X-Files, Taken

Favorite movie: Contact

Must be the aliens.

Truth is, I’ve always been fascinated by the thought of extraterrestrial life. It’s not necessarily about the little green men, or gray ones, or their supposed powers and advanced technologies that we exploit for entertainment. Contact summed it up the best for me when Ellie Arroway said, “The universe is a pretty big place. It’s bigger than anything that anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it’s just us, it seems like an awful waste of space.”

When you look at the sky, what do you see? How do you feel about the vastness of the space beyond this planet? It always humbles me, in the most lucid moments, how small and insignificant we are against the grander scheme of things. Let’s skip religion, but are we not to agree that we, as a race, are part of something greater than ourselves? But people can be self-possessed and egotistical, lusting over the power of gods, even when we can’t even agree where we really came from. That may very well be how we survived. And if you’ve watched “An Inconvenient Truth,” that’s also what will spell our doom.

It’s easier to think that “the world is what we make of it.” It’s easier not to look for answers, because that’s what humankind has been doing since the beginning of time. Looking and failing mightily. Are we not in a better position now to enjoy our lives and accept that it’s all there is to it?

I don’t think I have an answer to that. I even think that Occam’s Razor (“All things being equal, the simplest explanation is probably the correct one”) is a very complicated principle.

People will always look at things differently anyway. Consider these different viewpoints from the movie Contact:

Ironically, the thing that people are most hungry for — meaning– is the one thing that science hasn’t been able to give them … Is the world fundamentally a better place because of science and technology? We shop at home, we surf the Web… at the same time, we feel emptier, lonelier and more cut off from each other than at any other time in human history. – Palmer Joss (a spiritual leader)

You’re an interesting species, an interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other. – Alien from Vega

So it turns out there’s life on other planets. Boy, this is really going to change the Miss Universe contest, you know what I mean? – Jay Leno in his TV show

Gad, I love the movies! I love how they mirror real life even when they’re trying to be grand and fantastic and out of this world.

• No Related Post