Greetings fellow travelers!

We send you warm regards and hope that your travels are proving as fruitful as ours.   We have news to relate of our latest destination which we think you will find both fascinating and disturbing.   The alien planet called ‘Earth’ on which we now find ourselves is home to many contradictions & conundrums.   Over the past few days three of them have taken precedence with repeated appearances on various blogs, social media and even in magazines.   Here they are in no particular order:

1)  Members of religions professing to be about love and acceptance repeatedly attack non-members, calling them names and insulting their intelligence.    Have looked up two of the primary culprits seen in the media recently, and doubt that Jesus, the central figure in one of them, would agree with calling non-believers ‘uneducated idiots’.   He seems instead to exhort his followers to love their enemies.   Apparently this aspect of his teachings is not widely known.    Conversely, certain in the ‘atheist’ religion (for although they profess no belief in a God, their non-belief is practiced with the same zeal as many God-devotees) spend an inordinate amount of time ridiculing those who choose to belong to  theist sects.    Which does not seem to be an effective mode of persuasion to their point of view.    This baffles our children Maya and Ben who are unaccustomed to such vitriol stemming from nothing more than differences of opinion; especially when those differences are couched in something so intimate as personal beliefs regarding ones’ creation/creator.   Perhaps a more evolved species would simply respect these differences?

2)   Schools (institutions which purport to offer attendees access to an education) are a constant source of discussion in the media here on Earth.   Most of the talk revolves around how these institutions need to be reformed or improved.    Young humans, sent to school almost from infancy,  are treated much like our automatons;  they are perceived by their keepers – either teachers, parents or something called ‘caregivers’ –  to have  no common sense or decision-making abilities; indeed they are herded around for many years under heavy supervision and without any regard for their individual personalities or desires.  They cannot sleep when they wish, eat when they wish or learn when or what they wish.   It is all decided for them and they are penalized if they resist.     School is therefore very similar to a type of penal system, although mention of any such similarity is heavily frowned upon.   These findings have only reinforced our original decision to allow our children the freedom of being self-educated, as they would be on our home planet.

3)  Conflict between human teenagers (those between the ages of 13-19) and parents seems to not only be common, but expected in this highly pessimistic culture.    Recent posts on the social media called “Twitter” bear this out, with mothers stating that their teenage daughters resent them, never smile and hate their very presence.    One Twitter participant links to a website that purports to teach parents how to relate to the very individuals they themselves created and are supposedly nurturing to adult-hood.  In addition, many TV shows exploit this rift and label it ‘comedy’.    Close inspection reveals a possible link between the treatment these teens receive in school and their distrust of their parents.   Perhaps when a child is treated as an automaton for the first 12 years of their existence it builds resentment and a need to assert themselves which is then perceived as rebellion by those people whose lives are devoted to controlling these smaller beings.

Overall the humans on Earth seem somewhat unaware that actions have consequences.   They remain inordinently dependent on others to tell them what to think and do;  usually those they listen to are either politicians or ‘experts’.  The likelihood for significant positive change is therefore discouragingly low though not completely out of the realm of possibility.

We look forward to hearing from the rest of you and comparing notes.   Perhaps you may find a planet more hospitable to its’ children,  its’ environment (a subject on which I have not touched in this letter, but which could fill volumes) and on which the overriding philosophy is one of mutual respect among the species.  If so, write as soon as possible and we will make plans to join you there.