A new documentary has engaged my brain.  Deep Sky features pictures from the James Webb Telescope.  (Every time I start to use that phrase, I have to stop myself from calling it the Jack Webb Telescope.  They both work with people who want “just the facts.”  Close enough?

The movie captivates its audience with images that have either never been seen, or have never been viewed with such stunning clarity.  We see galaxies, heat waves, and cosmic clouds.  It is all quite overpowering.

Then, to my frustration, it raises that age-old question, “Are we alone?”

When I think about space travel, I hope for discoveries.  But not of aliens.  I want to learn about black holes, dark matter, novas; show me some stars being born or exploding and I am fine.  Everybody else keeps coming back to the question of, “There’s other life, right?”

I want to be an optimist.  I really do.  I think that there is always cause for hope.  I want to believe that we can always talk things out, even if it takes years.  I think God can work miracles, people can surprise you, and that, eventually, good wins the day.

But not with aliens.  It is not even their fault.  As much as I roll my eyes at Shakespeare, he was right.  The fault is with us.

Let us do some assuming.  First off, the most prevalent signs of life on Earth?  Not humans.  We have bugs aplenty.  And we have germs.  So many germs.  Germs coming out of our ears and mouths and in-between our mom’s brother’s second-wife’s third son’s toes.  Microbes and amoebas and all that.  It feels pretty safe to assume that there is a far greater possibility of encountering alien life that is microscopic and looks nothing like us.

Now, return our gaze back to Earth.  Look at how we treat folks that are almost identical to us.  Everyone breathes the same amount of the same chemicals, our physical structures may vary in size and color, yet the general template is roughly the same.  Our bodies function in more or less the same way.

However, we still struggle to get along.  A guy with mental problems shoots up Maine.  Gaza and Israel.  Russia and Ukraine.  Republicans and Democrats.  We have been fighting a lot recently.  Our DNA has many similarities.  We swap blood, organs, and bottles of water back and forth to keep us alive.  Many years later and we are still caught up in our Cain and Abel complex.  (Or, if you want to be a touch more current, Goofus and Gallant.  …Calvin and Moe?)

Okay.  Now why on Earth would you want to try to bring aliens into the mix?  We are nearly identical to each other, we already get our dander up, and you want to introduce an entirely new set of creatures into that conflict?  That does not go well.

First off, people have to expend great effort to find them.  I dislike flying across the country to see my folks.  My parents.  Those that birthed, fed, and schooled me.  Yet five hours squished into a plane seat, and I do not know how many new fees that have been added to airline tickets, makes me clench my jaw.  Asking me to put myself in suspended animation to go visit these blobs of plasm?  Nope.  Pass.

Then there are the basic needs to consider.  “Oh, hi.  Thanks for having us over.  Look, our tentacles and fins are getting rather chilly here.  We are going to turn up your global thermostat fifty degrees; really make ourselves at home.  Hope that is cool.  No?  Oh.  We already adjusted your orbit.  Oopsies.  Hey, lakes and oceans?  Overrated.”

Humans should not assume that aliens want to breathe oxygen.  Or that others are carbon-based.  Or eat food.  A perfect organism would produce no waste.  How are they going to get themselves out of awkward conversations with us if they do not have to powder their non-existent noses?  Very few of us speak American Sign Language.  Are we going to put forth the effort to engage in whatever translation is required with Cloud of Misty-Ethanol who wants to compare tips on how to transport their offspring without a working entertainment system?  (Board games are more fun if the kids have hands and fingers.)

As far as I can tell, the only way that any sort of alien encounter works is if we approach it in the Contact, Project Hail Mary way.  We send a probe/person/emissary.  They say hi.  Pleasantries are exchanged.  Then we get the sam hill back to our home.  “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Humans do not coexist without some strife.  Two days ago, a woman on an electric wheelchair was trying to get on a crowded train.  She asked this person to move.  She asked those folks to get up.  At least twenty people had to move for her to get to the door that she wanted.  Which we accepted.  Her mobility was limited, so we adjusted.  That is what we do in polite society.

As the train neared her stop, she started to rearrange her chair again.  She decided that she wanted to be closer a different door. One that was twenty feet (and those same twenty people) away.  She backed up and turned her chair into the handicapped seating section.  There was a man sitting there. 

She asked the man to move his legs.  He ignored her.  She asked again.  He declined.  It quickly escalated.  “I need you to move.”  “You’ve already inconvenienced forty people moving your chair all over the place.”  “It’s how I need to do it.”  “No you don’t.”

Then the audience participation started.  “Just move.”  “She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”  “She gets to do what she needs.”  “Well, what about me?”  “It’s a handicapped section.  You move.”  “Mind your own business.”  “You’re on public transportation.  It is our business.”

The sitter was being a jerk.  Or was he?  I have slowly been learned that plenty of special needs are not apparent.  What if he was struggling with a form of anxiety?  Does that make his use for the seating equal to a woman who is physically impaired?  Who gets greater claim?  Surely the woman could have pulled straight up to the door that she wanted instead of maneuvering and rearranging dozens of people.  Did they have an equal claim to the space, or were we witnessing Dude Being a Jerk? Both of those people got off at the next stop.  They both had the same goal:  To get where they were going.  And yet?  Conflict.

There was a similar situation yesterday.  Crowded train.  Afternoon commute.  Masses of people moving in dense clusters from A to B.  A stream of people trying to exit the train.  Large fellow gets mad that another large fellow is standing by the doorway.  Curses him out for not following proper protocol.  Swears at him for not behaving in the way that his manners deemed appropriate.  Two security guards, five feet away, stood by with passive expressions.

There was no snowpocalypse.  We were not trying to escape a giant dinosaur that had been awakened by oil drilling off the shore of a volcano.  Nobody was going to win a lifetime of Tootsie Rolls if they got off the train first.  This was a normal, everyday, unexceptional commute. 

And we still could not get along.

I like to learn.  I like having my mind blown.  I like looking at pretty pictures of universes that I will never see in person.  That all suits me.  If we want to see other cultures?  Cool.  We want to learn that other beings exist?  Okay.  Someone desires to meet these foreign creatures?  That is when I get uneasy. 

Because every single time we encounter a society that we think is less or weaker than ours, we take it over.  We knock down the ramshackle cottage and put in a luxury apartment complex.  I have been learning a fair bit about America’s history this year.  We wipe out all the people.  It is not great. Who is to say that there are not other jerks in space? Could we have a moral leg to stand on if they wanted to squish us under their seven-toe foot?

If we encounter a weaker species out there in the vast inky existence, then we are going to wipe it out.  Which is rude.  Also, bad.  If the civilization is hearty?  If we have that in common?  Then they are going to want things to go their way (just like us) and then we may have some conflict.  I like my multiple-planet skirmishes to play out on the comic book page, not reality.

So, what to do?  How do we restore hope?  How do we believe that we might keep spinning on our axis without firing asteroids at each other?

I can only speak for myself.  Two days ago, I did not like how people were treating each other on the train.  Mental stresses, chair concerns; those were not for me.  My back was hurting.  I wanted to sit.  But I did not know what other stressors were being felt by my fellow commuters. 

I stood in line.  I waited to board the bus.  I let the line of people to my right go first.  Then I let the people in the opposing line get on.  Then, once most of the others had boarded the bus, I paid my fare.  Because as much as I like the comfort of sitting, I much prefer that we all of us get along. 

I want to believe that, as much of sci-fi states, “We come in peace.”  That should always be true, be it on other planets, or just ours.  The trick is, to continue in peace.