It seemed as though the two of them had been talking for hours.
The boy’s unexpected visitor was showing a great deal of patience. He was saying, “I do realise that all of this must be hard for you to take in. I do not know why you were chosen specifically. That is something entirely outside of my conspectus, but you were chosen.”
The boy, sitting on the side of his bed, was equally patient. He sat listening in silence.
“My elders,” the visitor went on, “are fully aware that there is very little chance that anything I tell you, or any new ideas I bring with me, will have any substantial effect on the way your people move forward. My elders simply wish me to advise you that this is merely the sowing of a single seed.”
The boy, despite having never been the subject of an intelligence quotient test, was extremely bright. Others regarded him as a deep thinker. He said, “A lot of what you have told me is, let’s say, psychological. It’s more about how we think that has determined our historic path, rather than what we have done.”
The visitor smiled. “Exactly! I now see why you were chosen.”
“So far you have made a lot of references directed to the subject of celebrities. Why is this aspect of human nature so important?”
“Again, an astute observation. Yes, you have gone to the heart of it. Your kind has created the role of celebrity, which is now fully ingrained in your world culture. In fact, no nation or tribe is free from it.”
“OK. I see that, but what is wrong with a person having a celebrity status.”
“Everything.”
“Everything?”
“Yes. In all other advanced civilisations that my people know of, such a category does not exist. It is for this reason that we know that the concept of having no celebrities would be unfathomable to you.”
The boy thought about what had been said and the visitor, seeing this, waited. He asked, “Can you tell me what the problem is by having celebrities?”
“I can. It is that you have given them certain values, such as power, control and money, to name only a few. These values have been given to kings and queens, politicians, actors, business men and women, singers, dancers, comedians, composers, writers… the list is very long. It is long because your peopled have made it so. They are all mastered by values that we reject.”
“Are you saying that all people should be equal, or treated equal?”
“Yes, but in a way that you could not understand, after being so long on your present course of development. As I said… just sowing a seed.”
“So, you’re not actually here to change anything?”
“Not at all. We would have no way of doing that.”
“Well then, it will certainly make me stop and think about the value of celebrities.”
The visitor smiled broadly and bowed, and at this point two things happened in the same moment.
His visitor evaporated and his morning alarm sounded.