It has been more than a year since I last gave a speech. Speech number 2 seems a distant memory. After many missed meetings and much hesitation, I’ve decided that it is now or never. I am either going to make the most of my membership to the club, or I am going to quit. I chose to make the most.
I took a look at the speech that I prepared almost a year ago and decided to simplify a little so that I avoided memorizing it. Then I took a look at the goals again. I was not sure how to pull it off but at this point, my goal was just to give a speech.
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Do you believe that Aliens visited earth in ancient times? A few months ago, two of my nephews came to visit from the Philippines. They did not have anything to do most of the time, so they just watched television. They came to enjoy a show in discovery network titled” Ancient Aliens”. For those who are unfamiliar with this, it discusses the reasons they believe human lives and culture were created and influenced by visiting aliens.
As I listened to them argue about whether the argument has merits or not, I remembered the time so many years ago that I came across a similar situation. I was around the same age, early 20’s when I came across a book titled “Chariot of the gods”. The book and others in the series explored how ancient civilization like the Mayans, Aztecs, Egyptians, could not have come up the ways and means to create the architectural wonders they are known for. Structures like the pyramids, the Nazca lines or calendars. Then there are sculptures and figurines that mimic the look of modern spacecraft or fighter jets.
But something happened between then and now. As I listened to them, I wondered about the unfairness of some members modern society to judge the ancient world in that was. Personally, I believe in the existence alien life forms. Somehow I do not believe God had created such a huge universe only to populate it with one species. And in much the same way it was proven that the earth is not the center of the universe, we will also prove that man is not the only one.
I do not believe ancient aliens visited us in the past. They did not put us here as part of some grand experiment and helped develop our scientific and cultural growth. Today’s technology does not support the possibility of interstellar space travel between worlds. The distance is too great.
As time went on from the first I read that book, I grew older and more mature. I got a wife and kids and I watched these kids grow and develop. And during that time, I saw them use their imagination to mimic the world around them. Be it be on paper, sticks or play-doh.
I thought of how I now felt that the show was silly. After all, the man had learned to mimic nature by building artificial caves using wood, branches and then stone and steel. They built boats that would glide them across the Pacific to places like Easter Island or the Polynesian, like by copying the streamline of a fish. They learned to breathe underwater water using hollow tubes of grass. Then why could not, who looked upon some birds and dreamed of flight, riding a birdlike device like a boat? Sure, there was no way that given the state of technology and the materials on hand, that they could have ever built a workable flying machine. But it is not beyond them to have used the play-doh at hand to give life to the idea at hand.
We should give credit where credit is due. Ancient dreamers are the children of an evolving human race.
The Evaluation
The evaluation wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I could have done a better job at stating what the goal of the speech was. The evaluator found the speech entertaining, especially since the show “Ancient Alien” is one of his favorites. I was a bit disappointed because he thought I “memorized the speech very well” which was clearly not my intention, although I could see how he could have come to that conclusion.
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