Human Asteroids
Sihanoukville, Cambodia, September 6th, 2014
Salaroche


Normal, regular Cosmic Asteroids cannot do planet hopping. They just can’t bounce from one planet surface to another for the simple reason that once they crash against any larger celestial body they simply dissolve into it, leaving only a crater on the external crust of their host as proof that they ever existed.

Human Asteroids, on the other hand, can actually do country hopping, and they can do so partially because their nature and attributes are constrained within the confines of our planet’s atmosphere. I’m a Human Asteroid, but in so saying I’m aware that at this point you probably don’t have a clear idea of what that concept is all about.

Let’s start by saying that, in full contrast to most asteroids, planets have rather stable existences. For example, they usually have their own star or sun that they revolve around. Then they are always exposed to the small but always present possibility of hosting life on them. Planets are quite predictable too, as you can always tell at what position in space they will be at the different points in time, thereby showing us they have gravitational allegiances with other celestial bodies.

Asteroids, on the other hand, most often don’t have any predilection for orbiting around any particular star and they aren’t known for hosting any life on them either, other than perhaps some frozen bacterial micro expressions of it. In addition, and except for those asteroids crowding the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter and any other similar cosmic settings, many asteroids don’t have any specific mutual gravitational commitments to any other astronomical objects, thereby often making it very difficult to predict their path.

In the context or our planet, a Human Asteroid is any individual who doesn’t revolve around any particular “sun” or source of wellbeing, their capabilities for generating or hosting life are intact, but they opt for having no, or very limited offspring, and they aren’t much predictable either, as they don’t have much strong gravitational allegiances to countries or other earthlings.

For a Human Asteroid, a country can be the equivalent of a planet or of a sun/star. Country-planets make it possible for Human Asteroids to do planet hopping, as Asteroids don’t need to be absorbed or melt into any country they might land at; they can just visit for an undetermined amount of time and then continue on their asteroidal journey.

A country’s gravitational pull, however, can preclude humans from becoming asteroids in the full sense of the concept I'm developing here. This happens mostly, but not exclusively, when the country in question is the one where humans first see the light of day. Such gravitational pull is commonly known as “love of country” or even “patriotism”. While existing under the influence of forces of that sort, humans can occasionally stray away from their customary circuits, but sooner or later they usually return to their initial orbit around their “star” or country-source of wellbeing.

Human Asteroids can also play the role of stars to some other asteroids. Sometimes, the gravitational pull between two or more of them is so strong that they are unavoidably compelled to orbit around each other or even to travel together for various undetermined amounts of space and time. Such gravitational pull is commonly known as “love”, “friendship”, “sympathy”, “mutual interest”, etc. This kind of attraction may develop while Asteroids are orbiting around their own favorite star or while they're freely roaming around the intra-planetary universe.

Lately we’ve seen a new species of Human Asteroids growing out of a section of the world population known as “retirees”. These are planetary bodies that have spent most of their existence revolving around their habitual orbit but that once they reach a certain age their allegiance to those gravitational forces loses plenty of pull and they set themselves free to meander a bit around their earthly universe.

Some of us, however, are Human Asteroids Plus (HAPs), meaning we are Asteroids of a different sort. We could easily say that some of us HAPs are born to be Asteroids. We could also say that some of us are firstly Asteroids and secondly we are Human, but that’s something already subject to transcendental interpretations, which is something we’re better off steering away from for the moment. So let’s just say that some of us cannot bail out of our condition as Human Asteroids no matter how hard we may try to.

Can you picture yourself living as a HAP? Maybe yes maybe not, but, for better or worse, the fact is that not just anybody can become one, as that’s something much easier said than done. In contrast, becoming a Retired Human Asteroid is a rather easy task and becoming a Stray (occasional) Asteroid is even easier still, but a Human Asteroid Plus is a creature of a much complex sort.

To begin with, HAPs have already reached the point of no return, meaning we no longer have any gravitational allegiances to any of the planets or stars that we may have orbited around in the past. For that reason, HAPs don’t have any predetermined path to follow; we just travel in the direction that the nearest and strongest gravitational force compels us to pursue. HAPs do have some say in choosing our direction, but our choices are usually constrained within a certain cluster of possibilities. In consequence, being a HAP very often means being exposed to those vagaries of fate that nullify any difference between free will and predestination.

Being a HAP can often be fun, but it can also be a source of tension. For example, HAPs don’t have many predetermined space limitations, which entails a near-total sense of freedom, but we don’t have much of an external reliable source of wellbeing either, which entails a near-total sense of wandering aimlessly throughout space. Basically, to join the HAP crowd would require you to have your own impulse across space and your own internal source of survival energy across time, which entails a level of general detachment that, for better or worse, not many humans can muster.

In a nutshell, and with the above in mind, one could easily claim that the closer we get to being a Human Asteroid Plus, the closer we get to living the real meaning of the verb To Be, as plain and simple as possible, with no particular adjective attached to it.

Salaroche