Monsters and Muse

We watched the the Twilight Zone episode called Monsters Are Due On Maple Street. In this episode, the signs of xenophobia were endless. When they lost power to everything, within a few minutes they were in a panic. They were trying to figure out what had happened and then they started thinking that a family on the street were really aliens who had come beforehand to spy on their world. They start blaming the families who are just a little odd and paranoia seemed to take over. But you have to ask yourself, isn't any family just a little weird or odd in a different way? When fear takes over, people seem to stop thinking rationally. Xenophobia will probably be the cause of any other war or chaos we might have in the world because there are a lot more Maple Streets out in the world just waiting to have something happen so they can blame the people that are different from themselves.
We also read the short story Muse by Dean R. Koontz and this story was kind of sad. This innocent guy who was a host for this alien life form was beaten badly by his own father, just because his father thought that is was evil and taking over him. Then the father told his son, after he ripped it off of his back and threw it down on the ground repeatedly until it moved no more, that he could offer whatever the alien slug offered him but he couldn't. The son told his father that the alien was the one who created his songs he performed; the alien only wanted to create music. Since the alien was only like a slug it didn't have vocals or hands to do it himself. It's not like the alien took him over and did what it wanted, the son wanted to help it. Because of the father's xenophobia he broke that connection, the "muse," and could never be replaced. It wasn't till after the father did what he did that he realized maybe it was harmless. That is our problem as some of us humans, the fear of the unknown blinds us from making rational decisions.