Alqatari 1

Marwa Alqatari
University of North Carolina Charlotte
UWRT 1101
Mrs. Connie S. Douglas
9/25/2016
Do You Believe in Aliens?

I believe in aliens, and no, not people from outer space, but citizens
of earth that can be interpreted as foreign. As you can tell, Im being
sarcastic. Since there are many people that can have a sense of
individuality, which funny enough, makes them dehumanized because of
it. Aliens, to me, are people who break out of the social norms and who
want to know themselves. They are thinkers and seekers, they want to
give their souls and their minds justice, theyre not constricted, or
distracted of doing that because of society. They embrace their differences
and they respect others differences. They see people as humans, not as
labels. From an earlier time, all our doings are continuing to perpetuate
the idea that being different is often synonymous with having
unwelcomed views, beliefs or wrong ideas, it unwittingly creates this
notion. Odd and Weird people say, like it is a shame to be different or
to have a different world view. I believe in individuality, diversity, and in
real humanity.
I grew up living in a small town in Saudi, and because it is a small
town, people knew each other, and knew everything about one another,

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and that led them to talk about each other quite often. Gossiping made
people so afraid of their reputation, so afraid of having different views, so
afraid of exploring themselves, and so afraid of being judged. Oscar Wilde
in The Picture of Dorian Grey said: People are afraid of themselves,
nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one
owes to ones self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry
and clothe the beggar. But their souls starve, and are naked. People
unknowingly became copies of each other from the terror of society and
religion. They disregarded themselves completely, and judged anyone
that has any awareness of themselves. People made it their nature to
judge, when it never was our nature, and people should not make it so. I
personally could not help but question, I could not stand but doubt the
stillness, and that made me feel alienated for not blindly following the
tribe. Every part of my personality made me often underestimated,
misunderstood, and brushed aside. It was especially hard for me making
friends growing up. I got judged, made fun of, and bullied a lot because of
being different. I felt like an alien in my own house, too. Sometimes, being
different still makes me feel weird, and it makes me anxious to trace my
own road. I constantly blamed and doubted myself, and I have always
thought that maybe something was wrong with me. Until I met people in
high school that made me feel sane. I felt interesting for a change. They
were accepting of me, of the thoughts I had and the things I liked. Having
never experienced this feeling before, I remember crying because the
emotions were so overwhelming. I felt that my voice wasnt so
insignificant, it was heard. I stopped questioning myself then, and started

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questioning everything else. I came to a conclusion that people forgot to
think, and they forgot that their lives are theirs to live. I have only heard
echoes and I could not hear a single voice, they were overcast with
sacrilege. Peoplelet lies define them, that the truth loses its way to ever
find them. We can forget who we are and what we want, when society and
people around us speak too loudly that we people fail to hear our own
voices.
We, as humans, unconsciously allow other people to shape our thinking to
be a reflection of the norm, we forget that in the end, we are the ones who
create the social norm. The human race is extraordinarily diverse in so
many ways, we are meant to have different tongues, ethnicities, races,
genders, sexualities, philosophies, and lifestyles. People can have their
own truths; no one is wrong. Society now is overflowing with idealism and
normality propagated by the media and others, that it knocks down
whatever -no matter what it may be- is different, and demoralizes it. As
Howard Beale said in Network The whole world is becoming humanoid
creatures that look human but arent. (Network, 1976) We let media and
society take control that we consume everything they impose on us,
creating a fog of illusions. Hypocrisy is now a vice that we, in modern
society, have perfected to a fine art. As Howard Beale also said Television
is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is
a circus, a carnival, a travelling troupe of acrobats,. So if you want the
truth.. Go to God! Go to gurus! Go to yourselves! Because thats the only
place you are ever going to find any real truth. (Network, 1976) People

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built this demeaning system to inevitably make others constrained to fit a
certain archetype. We are so devoured by illusions that we become one.
Humans begin to believe the norm is real, but they are not, so they
disregard themselves and slowly shift into someone else. People are eager
to give themselves up in order to fit the societal norm. They allow other
people to steal their most treasured possession, themselves, and they let
them. No wonder our perception of ourselves is distorted, we give people
the key to our self-consciousness, by allowing them to shape our image
towards ourselves.
The idea of taking yourself for granted in order to be a part of the
tribe changes one's psychological and philosophical viewpoint. This is
most notably demonstrated in social conformity; which is a type of social
influence involving a change in belief or behavior in order to fit in with a
group. The most famous experiment was Solomon Asch's Line Experiment
in which he took a group of actors and one other person who was willing
to participate in the trial. In the experiment, the subjects were shown lines
and then they were asked questions about those lines. The subjects were
told to choose which question the line was referring to. The result was that
even though it was obvious the actors were all wrong, the participant
chose whatever the actors did anyway. This example demonstrates how
our society works today. People are unsure of themselves and do not want
to appear incompetent in front of one another. Even though the group did
not know each other, they all felt the need to belong to the group and be
accepted. Although these are human needs, we should know that we can
be accepted for who we are, even if we stand out from the crowd. The

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philosopher, Rene Descartes, once said If you would be a real seeker
after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far
as possible, all things. (Descartes) It seems easier for people to follow the
tribe than to face themselves and their own questions. The ability to think
is what defines consciousness. It is here where Descartes statement holds
profound implication because it takes nothing for granted, and seeks to
construct a sense of certainty within ones self.
Before our eyes or ears, we should open our minds. It is
our right as humans to think beyond the lines that constrain us. It is such
a waste of ones self to be a white dot on a white sheet of paper. I have
learned to embrace being different rather than be ashamed of it. All the
world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.
(Shakespeare 1564 - 1616 ) Merely, Shakespeare said, as if we are not
genuinely living, by not realizing how much potential we are oblivious to.
To merely exist is simply not enough. Do yourselves justice. Have a voice,
stand up to it. Think, and know yourselves. Lets embrace our differences,
lets love them. Lets be aliens, and lets believe in ourselves.

Alqatari 6

Work Cited

As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII [All the worlds a stage] William
Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616
Network. Dir. Sidney Lumet. Perf. Howard Beale. MGM, 1976. Film.
Principles of Philosophy by Rene Descartes (1644)
The Line Experiment by Solomon Asch (1951)
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Wilde, Oscar. N.p.: n.p., 1890. Print.