Symmetry

One of the recurrent principles of terrestrial design is symmetry - an equidistant (from a central point or line) distribution of mirror elements, parts or shapes - that seems to be an organising principle for most local organisms. Symmetries can be bilateral, radial or spherical. The most comprehensible form of symmetry, the spherical one,  is granted only to the smallest of organisms - the actinophryd, the radiolarian, and a couple of acantharea - all of them sporting designs strangely appropriate for Christmas decorations (Christmas - one of the peculiar local festivities similar to the earlier discussed New Year) as the examples of radiolarians below:

Humans exhibit strong sensory attraction to most radially symmetrical organisms such as the flowers, thus suggesting a cognitive point of possible convergence with my perspective which is obviously inclined to better grasp circular phenomena. However, their own partially bilateral symmetry raises more questions than attractions... For one, they are three dimensional beings - why are they symmetrical only in width and height, and asymmetrical in depth? Frankly, they look like some two dimensional object that has just sprung out into three dimensional space. This is also supported by the fact that their so called back is almost uniform: with the exception of the anal opening, most of the information enters and exits from the front - a peculiarity that severely restricts human motility that is most fluent in the forward direction, and rather limited all other ways. Ah well, and those strange beings have set themselves as the standard of all being:

The Peculiar Habit of Celebrating

Humans have a perplexing habit to indulge in lengthy festivities on randomly selected yet firmly established chronological points. For instance, I am just coming back from one such celebration that I chose to experience as a neon sign in a large urban settlement called New York City. What I observed was a curious random movement of crowds on the street below. The humans that comprised the crowd seemed to be doing exactly what they would be doing at any other time, such as walking, eating and shopping, only at a much more intensified rate.

This particular holiday celebrates the arbitrarily selected date of January, the 1st as the beginning of each new year. There are other such dates, honoured by other groups of earthlings, that don't necessarily coincide with each other but exhibit the same rationale - that time is a linear progression of repetitive units that have clearly defined beginnings and ends. It is difficult to grasp the logic that supports such an extravagant choice as the 1st of January. 1 is called a number - a symbol that indicates the beginning of a sequence broken down into equal units, and named by virtue of their placement. The dominant numerical system goes like this - 1 (one), 2 (two), 3 (three), 4 (four), 5 (five), 6 (six), 7 (seven), 8 (eight), 9 (nine), 10 (ten), and then builds on the 10: 11, 12, 13, etc. This is one of the ways they break down information into manageable units (oh, the perils of language-based knowledge). January is one of 12 months that conventionally constitute one year by most human cultural standards. The year is an obvious conventional choice as it constitutes one full revolution of the Earth around the Sun, but the seeming randomness of January 1st is still a mystery to me... No matter what the humans say in their convoluted "language"...

Shape Shifting

Last time I mentioned the freedom of shape shifting immigration allows for. By shape shifting I meant defying one's existential parameters and not merely changing appearance, as the locals would understand it. For instance, it would be a monumental feat for a local to turn from human to fox (another local species of similar parameters) while my default capabilities allow me to change state of being at will. I can be human, fox, fog or anything definable as long as I'm familiar with the conditions that agglutinate it into a particular phenomenon. I use this extensively in my observations, especially when I join the terrestrial frequencies to experience life from a local perspective. Any organic form would usually do, but I have a slight preference for the squirrel in urban settings and the frog or dandelion in the countryside. Inorganic forms are slightly more challenging as they tend to be inert but, occasionally, they offer their own exotic advantages.

You see, where I come from, the intrinsic design is a little more ergonomic than the one currently dominant on Earth. It is based on fluidity and environmental dance rather than fixity and environmental antagonism. For instance, although humans entertain extensive hypotheses as to why nature "intended" them that way, it remains unclear why would they be endowed with a limited 180 degree vision that would make them vulnerable to silent predators' back attacks. This alone predisposes them to be jumpy and hostile to their environment. In fact, peace is a concept they have been struggling with since the origin of their kind. Curiously, no terrestrial species entertains a full 3-D range 360 degree vision. I have meditated extensively on the matter and the only plausible explanation seems that the sensory restrictions of terrestrials streamline their capacity to master their environment. But here comes the big conundrum - they want to master their environment because they feel threatened by it, and they feel threatened by it precisely because their restrictive design makes them vulnerable to environmental attacks. Wouldn't it have been easier, for the environment or whatever form of creative channeling brought them about, to design them so as they don't feel threatened in the first place? On the other hand, this partial sensory plug into the environment may be indicative of the fact that they are organically related with each other and their surroundings, and cannot fully function as individuals. In fact, another peculiarity of their design confirms this conjecture - humans, as well as all other terrestrial phenomena, are subject to the Earth's gravitational pull. So much so that, even those ones amongst the terrestrial beings who can fly, are ultimately dependent on their direct physical contact with the planet. These make me suspect I am observing a single organism, Earth, that has developed highly individualized consciousness in some of its parts. My impression is that humans serve as the Earth's sensory tentacles and, in their mission to scout space and project themselves out of planetary orbit, they have forgotten (or perhaps were never supposed to be aware) that they are an organic part of this organism and not independent beings.

Here I should mention that not all organic forms share the same limitations as the humans. How did the latter become the dominant species is a question that is paramount in my investigation.

Immigration and Other Cognitive Delights

It's great to be an immigrant!

You get to lose everything that has defined you, everything that meant anything and, if you manage to keep your wits about you, you can turn the free fall into a flying session. Never ever will you bond with an environment as deeply as you've done it in your unconsciously complacent youth. Shape-shifting, on the other hand, can become feasible to the devoted immigrant, provided the latter does not indulge in mimicking the natives, or in other shape-fixating activities. Hold that thought, I'll get back to this later. Or not.

It's been only a few moments since I landed on this particular planet, some of the locals call Earth. The predominant local chronological standards divide time meticulously into equal rhythmic lengths. Consequently, time is conceptualized and precluded from fluctuating, compelling the dominant kind of earthlings, who call themselves humans, to be unidirectional in their majority. According to these pedantic measurements, my soujourn here can translate into thirteen years (i.e. thirteen revolutions of the Earth around the Sun). These are mostly unnecessary conventions but I'll henceforth adopt them for clarity in rendering my terrestrial observations.

Local time is conceived as an aspect of the modest three dimensions of space humans are generally socialized to perceive. This specific cognitive limitation prevents them from grasping information simultaneously, except in rare occasions where it is uni-or bi-dimensionally presented. They depend on movement, hence time, to encompass all possible views of a 3-D object. Needless to say, jumping different realities, of more (or of variable) dimensions, is barely conceivable to them and, with rare exceptions, reserved for theoretical musings.

As confusing as those spatio-temporal discrepancies may be, they allow me to conduct my observations virtually unnoticed. The fixed speed of local perception prevents the terrestrials from fully registering my presence. A mere change of frequencies allows me to go about my affairs while they perceive me in such a slow motion that I seem like a virtually static object, or conversely, to be so swift as to entirely evade their perceptual field. This, coupled with my design, allows me to effectively disguise myself as anything unalarmingly trivial, from a fig leaf to a giant Christmas decoration.

Humans give little semantic credence to sound, except in their use of language (see note below). Devoid of resources to detect the vibrations that accompany my presence, they have made me so careless that, apart from obliviously colliding with obstructions (whenever I have shifted into a hard physical condition), I am constantly emitting sounds for no other reason but to amuse myself. Granted, my natural sonic range is usually inaccessible to the earthlings' median cognitive apparatus, but sometimes the sounds that accompany me do slide into audibility. My oddly unimaginative human hosts invariably attribute it to white noise or other banality.

Sometimes, of course, I do slow down and align rhythmically with the locals. It gives me full taste, as they'd say here, of the terrestrial experience.

Note: Perhaps you've noticed my awkward command of English. It is only one of about 6,800 localized versions of the same basic construct, called language, which allows communication through the use of elaborate rules, codes and abstractions. The humans are so fond of this peculiar invention that their ability to access knowledge directly has become virtually extinct. I must admit I am also fascinated with this sluggish method of comprehension. It is a genuine delight to explore this maze of cognitive redundancy. Humans love excess and call it variety. I love variety and could be excessive in my pursuit of it. Variety lies in the unknown, in whatever I have barely or no idea of. It is the enticing whisper of the immensity around. Variety is the PR of knowledge, its commercial face. Once again it has seduced me out of my habitual setting and into a world as strange as a moth.