#arrival

Arrival (2016), Signs (2002)… the bottomline is this: we are a species that requires a mirror from another galaxy just to see our own reflection. In science fiction, aliens so often become the most effective lens through which we grasp the simplest truths about human nature and experience. When we look at an alien, we see a blank slate that forces us to reconcile with what it actually means to be "us". We distrust what is ordinary and intimate, yet we readily study and explore what is foreign and extraordinary. We are obsessed with the "Other" because we are alienated from ourselves. We require the arrival of the "Other" to finally acknowledge the "Self". We look to the sky not to find something better than us, but to find a version of ourselves that still feels worthy and miraculous. It is a cosmic irony that the further we reach into the unknown, the closer we get to the simple, terrestrial truth of what it means to be human, to be alive. Perhaps we need aliens not because we are fascinated by the unknown, but because we are too evasive about what we already know. (t.s.)