In the travel guide “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, the original entry “Earth: harmless” was expanded to “Earth: largely harmless” through intensive research. Well, it remains to be seen whether this is still true today. At least intergalactically it is still true. But I sometimes wonder what aliens might think if they observed the goings-on here: Would they smile in amusement? Would they be speechless in amazement? Or ponder with other extraterrestrials at the bar in the evening over a pangalactic Donnergurgler what the earthlings might be trying to achieve with some of their behavior?
“Do you know what I find most absurd about the earthlings? Every year, when the days get shorter and colder, they swarm out and buy dead conifers. Some even cut down their own specimen in the forest. Then they set it up in their dens and put all sorts of trinkets on it. Perhaps this distracts them from the fact that the tree is still drying out. And then many things are wrapped in lots of colorful paper and placed underneath. Hours later, after the arrangement has been partly sung about, the sometimes quite elaborate wrappings are torn down and disposed of. Often just a few days later, the tree ends up in shared areas outside the caves.”
“Oh, that’s nothing yet. Do you know what’s really crazy? The ubiquitous presence of these rolling units. There’s one or more of them outside every cave. Sometimes Earthlings sit in them - usually alone, although they go to great lengths to make sure the unit is as big and spacious as possible. They then move to another location. 90 percent of the time, however, the unit is parked in front of the dwellings. And even when they do move, it often doesn’t go any further because there are so many of them in the same place at the same time. The units also stand in front of light posts for a very long time. If it lights up at the top, you stop. Standing in their unit for so long is increasingly annoying for the earthlings, but it is still very important for many of them to continue doing so. So that they can get from one place to another with their units, there are solid, wide, gray stone surfaces everywhere, with which they have covered the entire earth. It seems inefficient to me.
There are also longer mobile containers for several terrestrials. However, many terrestrials want to stand in their own container at all costs. As they have built many of their caves in close proximity to each other, you could be forgiven for thinking that the terrestrials are interested in collective coexistence. But the idea could also be to have more storage space and paths for these mobile units, because they are really everywhere, sometimes stacked on large floors or in individual boxes. Most earthlings urgently need a new ride unit every two years, although they are actually quite stable and last a long time.
Oh yes - many units have an opening where you can pour toxic, finite liquid. This is then burned in the unit so that the earth can get a little warmer. Maybe they always want summer?”
“No, I don’t think so. (Takes a sip) Because even when it’s nice outside, they often sit inside in the units or in their caves. I keep looking at the earthlings and I’ve discovered something else strange: some of them get together quite regularly, either in one place or energetically connected, to press buttons with their fingers to create virtual things. They call this”programming”. I found it quite funny because they have already achieved a lot of networking and communication with it. And they’ve also optimized their cooperation a bit. They call it the internet and software and apps. Well, they definitely want to create really clever things, but the way to get there is often very inefficient. So they sit together day after day in meetings and look at so-called KraftPunkt presentations. It is apparently relevant to criticize irrelevant things. The more specific the verbalized phrases sound, the better. In the end, new tasks are devised and they soon meet again - always in a different constellation. The strange thing is that there is little time left for what they actually wanted to create. KraftPunkt is used for virtually everything: Reports, documents, descriptions. You have to understand that - they have so much technical potential and waste time on trivialities.” “Yes, that’s really absurd. You know what? We should suggest a change to the travel guide publisher Ursa Minor. Let’s change ‘Earth: largely harmless’ to ‘Earth: largely harmless, absurd in places’. Cheers, to the earth!”
We evaluate and give things an individual meaning. Whether something is meaningful or absurd is subjective. What is important to one person is stupid to another. And yet: just because something has always been done this way in the past, it can be nonsense today. Yesterday’s solutions are today’s problems. What helps: Always take a look, be critical and: Change your perspective!