Chipping away

It's time to talk about one of the ideas behind this blog. The title of the blog, Intelligent Life Is All Around Us, is a line from a song by Peter Gabriel, "Animal Nation". It's such a great distillation of what I'm trying to say for a couple of reasons.

First of all, it's exactly what I hope people everywhere will realize. The creatures that are ignored and abused are just as intelligent, emotional, and alive as we are.

Second, it chips away at a barrier of loneliness that humans have placed around themselves. They ask, are humans on earth alone in the universe? They look in vain to other planets to find some sort of connection to a larger view of life. That connection is right here, all around us, but our society trains us to ignore it, to actively discount it, to think only in terms of uniquely human forms of expression.

It takes a bit of openness, it takes true observation, it takes a sudden realization that expressions of the same emotions can take different forms, to break down the barrier and begin to realize that humans are not alone.

It takes someone famous to distill the idea and set it to music so that it may spread and gradually introduce some light into our society's blindness. That it was included on the soundtrack of a movie aimed at kids gives me a lot of hope.

Thank you, Peter Gabriel.