In Continuum.

Picture yourself as an alien right now, traveling to Earth via a spaceship small enough to not be detected, and the invisible cloaking device is shielding you from human eyes on the ground. In other words, you are completely safe to go about and execute your mission. You are to observe the ways of humans, how they act and why they act in a certain manner. After a full decade of report is done and compiled, you are to return to your home planet with this research report and facilitate the invasion of planet Earth. As an alien, a being that has never came into contact with mankind before, wouldn't you find our actions really really strange at times? We put a lot of things into our mouths, three times a day, only to pass them all out through a little hole in our behinds. For a third of the day, all humans have to shutdown and fall into a state whereby they call "sleep", only to be powered back on in the early hours of the morning. Some of us do not abide to these rules, but we still have to sleep sooner or later. A lot of things humans do, if we could tear ourselves away from a second, are indeed really weird if you think about it. Some of them doesn't really make any sense at all, while others must have seemed weird when it first started. Imagine their faces, those early human beings, when they heard that circumcision would be implemented. Yeah, that'd be a really funny sight indeed. 

Anyway, if you think about it, humans do engage in very strange activities that really don't mean anything. Or rather, they do mean something, but it must have been weird when the first human beings came up with that idea. I mean, everything we do today must have been started by somebody long before we did, right? Other than internet slangs like "lol" and "omg", there are a bunch of other things that we have learned from people around us, because someone else long before started out doing it first. Like the thumbs up, who came up with the thumbs up? I think the person who first came up with it ought to be really proud of himself, because it has lasted the test of time, and we are still doing it today. I know during the Roman Empire, a thumbs up meant that a person would get to live, and a thumbs down would mean that a person gets to be executed, something like that. But I am sure somebody else came up with that sign in the very first place. It is different from covering your face when you are shy or embarrassed, because I think those things are built into our DNA, somehow. Like that case we learned at school about how blind children would cover their faces even though they've never been shown or taught to do so by people around them. A thumbs up is just something someone came up with, and we all just kinda followed afterwards. 

So, imagine the faces of the first humans who were present when they came up with the idea of kissing. I mean, what purpose does kissing really serve, really, other than providing some kind of physical contact. Kissing people two people certainly feels good on a physical level, but it really is quite a mystery if you think about. Society has tagged meanings to kissing, like the display of affection for one another, for example. That is the meaning we gave of it, but how did human beings come up with it in the first place? I always picture a bunch of cave man and women sitting around in a cave and discussing such things, and one of them would be doing it to someone else, just for the sake of it. I think it started out as a playful fight, because you don't really need to learn how to fight - we just kinda know. So, in the course of fighting, two people probably got tangled up, and their lips probably grazed each other in the process. They probably thought that feeling to be pretty nice, but didn't think too much about it. Until a couple of months later, someone probably proposed that we need to have a sign to show our affection for one another. So the two people who were fighting, probably suggested that we should stick our lips together, because it seems like a special gesture. 

But imagine if that happened a little differently in our history. What if it wasn't the lips that touched, but the knees or our ears. Maybe even our foreheads, or our chins, who knows? What if the first human beings decided that, to show our affection for one another, we should touch our belly buttons together, wouldn't that be odd? I'm not sure what the first humans thought about two people putting their lips together, and I wonder how it slowly evolved into the kisses that we know today. It probably just started with two person putting their lips together, but they didn't quite know how long they should stay that way. So they said, "Maybe that is enough", and pulled away. Then it slowly involved some movements in the lips, and then more than just lips. The French probably was responsible for it, which is why we call them French Kisses today. They probably realized that we the tongue, you open up a whole lot more possibilities with kissing, so they went ahead with it and spread it around the world. Some people still find it a little, well, wild for their taste. But there are people who enjoy it, and there isn't anything wrong with a bit of tongue, I suppose. But still, imagining myself as a spectator of the very first kiss in human history must have been a weird experience. I'd probably be thinking, what in the world are they doing? 

Next, sex. I think sex is a weird activity to be engaged in, if you are an alien from outer space that reproduces in a different way. Most of the animals in the animal kingdom pretty much does the same as all of us, but plants do it differently, and corals too. So, human sexual intercourse is actually really weird, if you think about it. Here we have two human beings, naked, and then putting an organ that is usually used for excretion into the organ of another human being that is usually used for excretion. And the two humans go at it for a period of time at a time and feel good about it, even though the act itself is rather strange. It's two people pounding against one another, don't you find it odd? If you see two human beings, fully clothed, banging against one another in the middle of the street and making funny noises, wouldn't you find it extremely weird? It is kind of like those scenarios we read in books, when a kid stumbles upon his parents having sex. You can imagine the kind of confusion in his head when he sees his parents naked and bouncing around on the bed. It must have been odd, but that was probably what the first human beings thought when they saw the live demonstration of sex before their eyes. Oh, imagine their faces. 

It seems logical enough, though. One person has something sticking out between his legs, and the other person has a hole that goes deep into her body. I think humans were programmed to put something that is sticking out into something that is sinking in. So they thought that it was probably worth a try and see what happens, and the people around them must have been really shocked at what was happening. "What in the world are you doing?!", they must have shouted, and must have tried to stop them from doing whatever they were doing. For visualization, let's just assume that the guy was called Adam and the girl was called Eve, and they were going at it while their friends watched in awe, and a lot of confusion. It is a process that doesn't make sense, because there is no way that humans would know that that activity is for making babies, right? So, the mere action of two genitals being joined together probably didn't make a lot of sense to the people back then, and it probably scared a lot of people as well. So a lot of them though that we shouldn't engage in such activities, that it should be reserved only to married couples, and behind closed doors where you can't be seen or heard. That is how religion probably came about, the fear of see a human stick an organ into the organ of another human. The irony is, of course, religion surely didn't hesitate to stick blades into members of another religion. 

Speaking of religion, here's a thing about it that I don't understand. Some religions actively practice, or encourage, circumcision - what's up with that? Can you imagine the faces of those that first heard about the idea of circumcision? I bet even the ladies squirmed at the thought, because it is just not very pleasant. I imagine a bunch of posters being stuck around a small little town about a town hall meeting at five o'clock in the afternoon. So all the religious people gathered at a place, and the head of the religion probably stood up on the podium and announced to the believers "People of (insert religion here), lend me your ears! You have done much to prove your faith and your devotion to our mighty lord, but there is still one thing yet to be done for Him, especially the men in the audience today, as well as me. We haven't done enough for the Lord, and that is why we are being punished by these droughts and hard weather. Men, we have to pick up the burden and do something about it, and we shall end it once and for all! Our Lord will appreciate our sacrifices, more than the blood and the sweat that we willingly give up in the fields. We have to cut away the foreskin of our penises, every one of them, and men shall live without their foreskin as long as they believe in (insert religion here). I shall call it - circumcision!" 

Those men must have been stunned, like really shocked. Suddenly, all their hard work in the fields ploughing through the lands weren't enough anymore. Now they have to somehow find a way to cut away their foreskin, imagine their faces! Most men probably squirmed and fainted, while others probably volunteered themselves for a live demonstration. Then the supposedly brave souls probably squirmed and fainted as well, because it is just not a procedure you want to go through, you know? I bet the first humans there at the gathering probably went, "Now wait just a minute there", because it really doesn't make any sense at all. Imagine being told that, in order for you to believe in my religion, one of the things you have to go through is to have your foreskin cut off - what's up with that? Not every religion does it, and I am sure not every religion reinforces it. But circumcision is probably one of the most common procedures on new born babies in America, for example. But a lot of humans go through with the procedure without really knowing why they did it, if they had a choice at all. They just do it because, the first humans did it before, and probably thought it was cool. Maybe they showed off to each other in the caves and yelled, "Hey, I don't have my foreskin!". Imagine their faces!

So yes, there are things that humans do that, if you think about it from the "first human" context, really must have shocked the hell out of you. What are those things coming out from your behind? And, they smell! Yes, human beings are really weird creatures, and it is kind of like how you must have thought when you first saw two snakes having an intercourse on Discovery Channel. I know I was confused for a while, how about you?