THE XENO EQUATION

Is there anyone in the dark forest? Or are we alone in the long, deep dark?

Do aliens exist or are we punching? Hoping? Has media inflated our ideas of the universe and its possibilities?

Questions, questions, and yet no answers. Science is governed by truths. Politics by lies. I am in no way a scientist, but I believe in the artistry of the soul and the many paths of enlightenment it can lead us down. Imaginers are just scientists of their arts, and in this furore of talent perhaps we can take something away from this.

I have been ill of late. I won't bore you, but it has given me time to reflect, and think about certain things in society. Our place in it. Our place within it all. And the place where we are heading.

What the hell does this have to do with aliens?

Everything.

Dave has had a shit week. He just wants to get home now and shut the world away. He is going to order a pizza and a side or two. He's okay for booze, there is still some lager left over from the summer barbeque. He doesn't drink that much but he wants to blur the edges a little. He's alone, in his house. A blanket and a hardwood door between him and the outside world which is gradually turning into a coagulating cesspool of shite.

He is going to binge a boxset this weekend. Turn off his phone and sleep and do whatever he likes. This unimportant fact could be the most important discovery known to creation. Wait! No, I'm blowing my trumpet. It is the author in me. Ever the dramatist. I'm not trying to change the world. Just offer, an amendment to the Fermi Paradox - a continuation of its themes.

Anyway, Dave ...

Dave, and others like him, have made a protective shell around them. Anxiety runs high in a society that constantly bombards your resilience and honesty into a mulch. Conformist ideals are rampant, telling you to work for money, a commodity that in all actuality doesn't even exist. A framework in which to keep you in order and compliant. Covid exiles you to your box, force feeding you the news of the world and its half-truths. You are free to roam in your box, surf the web, order trinkets online, just to sate your boredom. Politics and war still take precedence. Members of state will still walk the hallowed halls of government, but their bubbles are chic, champagne on tap, no need of statutory laws as they are the ones that made it legislation. Bravo to them for saving our bacon. Have a drink.

Dave has depression after Covid. Things seemed to get bad. It was like society spoke to him in Chinese whispers and riddles. It has felt like a part of him has been locked away for a while. The antidepressants have helped for a while. It made him get back to work to earn imaginary money again, even though his Victorian paymasters belittled him into thinking he was a loser. It's okay, he has two more episodes of Stranger Things to watch tonight. It will make him ride out the day. He may even have a wank. It'll take him longer as the antidepressants have watered down all sensation and feeling. Unfortunately, and depressingly, Netflix is his lifeline right now. Not chemistry or the thought that lockdown is over. Art. Art in its myriad forms from books to television, movies to podcasts. Anything that can switch off the crap of Russia invading another country because Putin thinks he is hard. Nothing like a good war to pick up an economy.

In the grand scheme of things Earth is tiny, and young. Let's use some fictional aliens for an example. If you were advanced to the point, you could bend space and time and frequent this planet like they all seem to do (hint - it's the salt water, it's an excellent conductor to propel interstellar craft) and they noticed all the shenanigans happening on Earth you wouldn't as an advanced species be exactly smitten with its potential. Let's spin the paradigm around . . . you're leisurely driving through the countryside with your family and see two neolithic cavemen fighting over a deer's carcass. It is violent, bloody, you see the primordial ferocity and have no qualms in accelerating a little further to flee the tumult. While doing so, you think, well why don't they just share it. You are on a plateau of thought that quantifies choice, intelligence, and the freedom to do so. You don't want to get involved. You would rather drive away in your spacecraft, oops, sorry, car.

It isn't just a question of xenophobia. It all boils down to technology. With the advent of the Metaverse we keep hearing that it will change everything. As the internet did, and has, and to a degree still does. The Metaverse is the next big thing which awaits us. While we can waste away our hours traversing the web, the Metaverse promises to immerse us. A form of virtual reality and augmented reality. If you were a highflyer and needed to be in a meeting in L.A but you resided in London, you could connect a headset and be in Los Angeles within moments. It will change the world. Beyond our comprehension . . . but wait.

If life elsewhere within the universe has evolved to the point of interstellar travel, then surely, they would have mastered AI, augmented realities for training purposes, designed virtual realities. Maybe, possibly, and most probably uploaded consciousness into mainframes to conquer death. Maybe they have created the construct of their own afterlives, foregoing the treacherous notion that they should expand, explore the universe and converse with other species. Why would they? They can now harness their own realities. They can plot scenarios, outcomes that can play out how they choose. What footprints they have left on the shores of other planets have now disappeared, yet they persevere in their personal kingdoms, like Dave, albeit eons in infancy. Our universal neighbours have shut their doors and are within their own Netflix. And why not. We are not exactly appealing. Xenophobes at the top of their game. Safe. At one with their respective arts.