Shields Up

With influences from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...

I meet new humans all of the time. It's an occupational hazard, if you will, considering my tendency for invasion of their territory while trundling along doing my J.O.B. My job, while posing as a city employee, is to update the page in the Galactic Visitors Guide on the third planet from a nondescript sun at the far reaches of the Milky Way.

Generally speaking, conversations with humans aren't all that bad... unless they're carrying a nine iron, a sodden dishrag or a scowl. My ability with human humour tends to get me out of most binds. Afterwards, I simply move on whistling the theme to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest all the while glancing over my shoulder alert for a goalie mask wearing, machete wielding, cover-all clad, shadowy figures named Jason (a rather bizarre series of self destructive videos designed to awaken something long hidden in the human psyche).

How many of those movies have been made, anyway?

I do understand people coming out of their domestic hidy-holes to see what I'm up to. Despite wearing blinding orange with a yellow “shoot here” X across my chest, I am, after all, skulking around the nether regions of their abodes. That most persons of ill repute would unlikely be wearing brain-numbing fluorescent while casing a stranger's home seems of little consequence. That the city installers have a habit of placing water remotes in areas where, despite intent, it appears as if I'm peeking in windows or checking out goodies in backyards. Part of my job, therefore, is being bold.

Another part of the job is being aware of hazards. Things like snow covered holes, snarling dogs, slippery concrete, malcontent cats, threatening goldfish, menageries of child playthings, garden skewering implements and overly aggressive neighbourhood watches. Keeping my guard up while traipsing around someone's property looking for a water-thingy on the outside of a house specifically placed in the most inconvenient position possible by overwhelmingly vapid city installers is a full time occupation in itself. Under the stairs behind the rose bush where the pet wolf has it's daily unload? Really!?

I'm far too far from home for this crap.

It occurs to me, though, there are certain hazards which occur in human's daily lives which carry as much risk of damage to their malleable neurons as there might be to their physical being. There is a strikingly odd behaviour among ape descendants to behave somewhat... ape-ish, though the leaving of the trees occurred, in the local vernacular, many moons ago. Humans have an innate ability to “raise shields” whenever they encounter a situation in which they are unfamiliar. In instances where humans are familiar with the degree of ape-ish-ness, shields are usually raised before the encounter... often several days before, thus shutting down their ability to function on a high level for days at a time. And thus the need for emotional awakening at films.

Generally speaking, “shields up” occurs just about any time a human is in a state of wakened consciousness, though that generally accepted “conscious” state is subject to debate in and of itself.

Interestingly, the shields don't offer physical protection. More often than not, this state can be described as a mental state... an involuntary, systematic shutdown of high level functioning areas of the brain most prone to emotional attack while creating a semi-comatose state which the bipedal, carbon based unit labels as “normal”. “Normal” itself, as with consciousness, is a subjective state from human to human and therefore has no real intrinsic value to the whole. Nor is “normal” a continuous state among individuals. Rather, it seems to be a moving target based on some irrational emotional state combined with internal chemical reaction liberally mixed with external chemical reactions and whether or not bananas or peaches are available at the local grocery.

All this to say humans have no true state of normal except the obvious that individual normal is not normal at all.

The whole of society, as it were, tends to be afflicted with a general malaise as individual carbon based units migrate from place to place doing whatever it is they deem important. In most instances, this important activity includes some form of low level communication, shuffling papers from one side of a desk to another, drinking caffeinated beverages and staring fascinated at a cat cleaning itself. The “shields up” state is a constant, particularly when watching a cat clean itself, lest the human be caught staring by said cat and the human receiving a blank stare from the feline telepathically communicating the thought, “Don't you wish you could do the same”.

Humans are in a constant state of self protection, all the while yearning for connection. So ingrained is this yen for connection that they will often find ways of attracting attention to themselves without regard to personal safety, physically or emotionally, through activities which require them to wear protective clothing and shut off their conscious brain. Since the subconscious seems to run the show in the human mind, it is this subconscious which determines whether now is a good time for attention getting or not, often through means unbecoming of their ancestral apes.

This, then, is the great human dichotomy which permeates through their inept, directionless, self-defeating social structure; the unconscious need to be connected while having emotional shields up thus preventing said connection in the first place and searching out activities which give them those emotional boosts much to the detriment of their physical being.

Yeah... I don't get it either.

In summary, humans are most likely not a threat to anything accept themselves, their environment and any hapless traveller wandering into their midst trying to communicate on virtually any level of rational thought. Beyond that, Earth is a decent place to watch the goings on from a distance. While somewhat affable, becoming engaged in the activities of humans comes with its own perils, inclusive of any attempts to define pretty much anything about them, and should be considered mentally hazardous.

Any attempt to understand the reasoning behind human activity will most likely result in paralysis and a yearning to dine on dirt.

I wonder if I should remove the yellow X. You know... just as a protective measure.