It’s early in the morning and nobody will probably read this but I just had the greatest ‘humans are space orcs’ idea
Imagine if humans are the only species that experiences impatience.
Think about it. Most prey animals are extremely patient. Ever meet a deer or a rabbit in the woods and hold still to try and out-wait the thing? I can guarantee your brain starts sending bored bored bored messages very quickly, and your instincts start telling you to give up and find something else to do. Humans can do the patience thing- as evidenced by our endurance hunting methods- but our instincts tell us not to. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this feels like a predator development. I have the idea that if aliens are mostly prey-based, and we’re predator-based, then the aliens will be very patient and we just aren’t.
As an evolutionary development, being impatient can be brilliant. It means that we didn’t sit around and wait for the ice caps to warm up, we knew we didn’t have the technology to survive that level of cold, but we did it anyways. We were trying to send people into the sky and then into space before we had fully figured it all out, simply because we didn’t want to wait and think it out, we wanted SPACE and we wanted it NOW. And personally, I tend to be extremely productive and inventive when I’m feeling impatient. Mechanic is booked for a few days? I’ll figure out how to change my oil and tires and tint my car’s windows myself. Strawberry season is still 4 months away? I’ll get a heat lamp setup and grow them myself. Friends can’t visit and help move furniture for a week? I’ll build a trolley out of some toy cars, tape, a chessboard, and do all the lifting myself.
This impatience is what made us design faster cars, faster computers, faster internet, faster communication, methods of growing food faster, of processing food faster, we’re always looking for the quickest and most efficient thing simply because we are not patient.
Impatience leads to a type of creativity and persistence that patience just doesn’t have.
Imagine aliens starting to realize this.
“You got to your moon before you had developed LED screens??? You didn’t even have computers that could do basic math?!”
“Well, what else were we gonna do, sit around and wait?”
“Your planes don’t have gravitational control? Don’t you experience discomfort from the acceleration and directional changes?”
“Sure. But we needed to get on the other side of the planet in a decent amount of time.”
“So… what you’re articulating is that you’d rather have physical distress than have to have a long journey?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Human____, our mechanical teams will be on site in several of your earth hours, so we won’t be going anywhere until then.”
“Screw that. Where’s the manual for this thing? I bet I can fix it.”
“But you don’t have any mechanical training.”
“I also don’t feel like sitting around on this rock for ages.”
“You’re back already? I thought your medical representative told you to not be walking on that limb for another of your weeks.”
“Ugh. I just can’t anymore. I’ve got to get up and move and do something, anything.”
“But doesn’t that hurt to walk on?”
“Absolutely.”
“…You would choose pain over waiting?”
“What can I say, I’m not a patient person.”
Like aliens just being baffled that humans would rather work hard or struggle with a problem or even experience pain and discomfort. They, as prey species, are used to just waiting it out. They don’t have the same impatience driving them to get up and go and to fight through things just because they can’t wait any longer.
Bonus:
Human: Ain’t nobody got time for that!
Alien: Why don’t you have time? Is something scheduled soon?
Human: No, I just don’t feel like wasting time.
Alien: But… it’s not wasted. It’s time well spent. And you do technically have the time to spare for that. If there’s nothing scheduled, then you do ‘got time for that’.
Human: No. No, I don’t. It’s just… no.
