Alien Nation: Existing Among Them or Living As One

There is an ongoing debate regarding the presence of life on Mars and/or other planets. 1996, scientists announced that they found evidence of ancient life on Mars in the meteorite ALH 84001, which was collected in Antarctica. We hear of these findings and relegate them as background noise to the sound track of our lives. We simple don’t believe or won’t because of how we have been instructed to believe. What if there are “99 other unfallen worlds”? What if we are not really living our own lives? What if we are living this life on someone else’s terms? What if we are just falling into line based on patterns set by algorithms and social conditioning? The aptly crowned father of Afrofuturism, musician and philosopher Sun Ra, also from Alabama, spoke of being from another planet, of visiting other worlds. Many if not most of us would dismiss this idea or ideal as ridiculous or delusional at best. Take note that Sun Ra’s drummer, Marshall Allen is still touring…at 100 years old as of May 25, 2024.

In one of the X-Men movies, Aurora and Jean are having a hard time accepting what Kurt is telling them about himself. He responds with these paradigm shifting words, “Most people will only believe what they see with their own two eyes.” How limiting that is. This leaves no room for faith or knowing outside of the box. Often when people dare to veer outside the box, they are alienated. Few things are taken into mainstream belief until accepted and coopted by the status quo. So most people shuffle through life in quiet desperation sipping on the tea of forgetfulness sweetened with a heaping spoonful of groupthink.

The other day I wrestled with this subject and the alien nature of it all. I know where my feet have trod and my mind has traveled. It’s been a journey I tell you. How many others must also experience the same revelations only to shut them down by the voices of reason encroaching from the outside. All the way home, the ideas of martians, aliens or whatever else might be out there, here with us or be us, orbited my mind. A short while after arriving home, I received a call from my first born daughter asking me to go outside and look to the sky (she lives around the corner). I did, and there loomed a luminescent starry light. First, I went through every logical explanation on what it could be. It sat beneath the heavy cloud bank and never moved. It was not a plane or satellite. I finally came inside, knowing what the title of this blog would be. The idea of alienation is inseparable from the idea of living life on our own terms.

What if being alien wasn’t about being apart, but being apart from fear? What if we chose courage over comfort, purpose over approval? What if we chose to live on our own terms breaking free from the quiet desperation of fitting into lives designed by others. Instead of surviving on what’s “dished out,” we take the raw ingredients of our existence—flawed, messy, miraculous—and create something true and relevant.

The bottom line is that we are all aliens here—strangers to each other, to ourselves, and to the dreams we’ve been handed like unwanted but accepted old hand-me-downs . Personal alienation feels as vast and cold as outer space, where the rules of survival aren’t written for us or by us but imposed by someone else’s limited idea of life space. Are we willing to go where no man has gone before?

Imagine no longer waiting for permission to dream your dream, to love, to thrive in your own rhythm. Imagine a life where alienation isn’t exile but liberation, where we reclaim our space and write our narrative among the stars, rather than shrinking into the dark corners of someone else’s dream…or nightmare.

To live fully, boldly, is to embrace the alien within—odd, radiant, and untethered. Life isn’t meant to be spent in the shadow of someone else’s vision. It’s meant to be lived, fully and unapologetically, in the brilliance of our own light. On this planet, where the dishes are often unpalatable and shaped by others, let us become the master chef of our own feasts, the architects of our own worlds. I’ve caught long glimpses and I know they exist…

Would you dare to be alien enough to live your dream?