An Alien’s Guide to Human Development

As with all things in nature, human beings are subject to a constant and almost imperceptible change. Change occurs in many forms, typically categorized in various forms of growth and decay. Things come together, things fall apart. Humans are not exempt from this reality. From our birth we begin forming new flesh, we develop and grow in size. Through adulthood the body, after it has reached it's terminal growth, rides out the spark of life within it as it slowly decays into death and becomes again one with the dust from which it was made.

Human beings however, are not entirely confined to the limitations of the earth. Change within us occurs in more ways that just physical, though there is much debate in this regard. For the uninitiated, there is something within the human being known as a spirit that some refer to as a soul, others refer to it as a mind or psyche, and still others believe that the soul and mind exist concurrently within the person. Many people throughout history have attempted to quantify this experience using research and relationships and the invention of new descriptive words to determine the exact nature of this being that occupies the human body. These different approaches to understanding what I will henceforth refer to as "the self". Change in regard to the self is a tricky thing for the individual to identify as it typically happens as a result of a series of causal events which begin with birth and develop the person through experience.

Many human records tell of people undergoing vast changes in character through the confrontation of trials or fears, this is the basis of most, if not all, of human mythological storytelling. This idea alone has recently branched off into a sect of psychological understanding which posits that people who confront their fears are more likely to develop changes in their self concept that they and others may deem positive. The pretense to this theory is derived from the idea that all human beings share a fundamental self concept which is revealed to us in pieces through dreams, art, and the development of cultures. And so just like the things of nature, human beings change gradually and sometimes all at once. Just like the explosion of a volcano, a massive flood or a forest fire, nature's changes can also be violent and unexpected. In the case of the human life, the abrupt change is often awe inspiring and/or terrifying for the individual. Experiences with God, death, the creation of life, and in many other cases these changes occur randomly in people. Small individual changes are often informed by those of the culture either manifested in the form of conformity or resistance, in this you will see the development of tribes and cultures which often war with each other, change ensues as a result of this as well.

Human beings capacity to change is directly caused by their connection to forces greater than themselves. Their perception of such changes, and the fact that they often occur subtly, lead some people to come to the belief that change in human beings is not possible. This, however, is the result of the limited capacity for the human being to sense time and the effects that is has on existing objects, therefore they require the assistance of generations of other humans and the guidance of the Creator of existence, to which they are incredibly fortunate to have direct access through conversation, conviction, and a written historical record of change, its nature and the cause therein.