I watched the Artemis II crew return to Earth. There is something deeply moving about seeing astronauts come home. Their first words, their shaky breaths, the overwhelming emotion—it cuts through the usual noise of our daily lives.
But it was Christina Koch who stopped me cold. Looking at our planet from the perspective of having left it, she said something simple yet revolutionary: We are all the crew on the Planet Earth.
In that moment, she wasn't just an astronaut. She was a philosopher, a poet, and a truth-teller. She was inviting us to stop being passengers.
Her words immediately brought me back to a letter on Alice Miller’s website. A reader wrote to her with an allegory: "My main point in the allegory is that by necessity, none of us are passengers anymore. Everybody's crew."
It is the exact same truth Christina spoke. But Alice Miller’s response is the one that haunts me. She agreed, but then added this devastating caveat:
"But to become aware of the fact that our obedience learned in childhood doesn't allow us to think freely probably needs more than many hundreds of years. I am not sure if the tortured planet leaves us the necessary time to understand this fact, to protest against it, and to become a conscious, responsible members of the crew."
There it is. The chasm between vision and reality.
The View from Orbit vs. The View from the Crib
From space, the Earth is a fragile, borderless blue marble. From that distance, it is obvious that we are all in this together. The pettiness of our political fights, the greed, the endless consumption—it all looks not just stupid, but suicidal.
From the perspective of a child, however? That is where the trouble begins. Because we are not born as conscious crew members. We are born into families that are often still asleep, still reacting, still reenacting their own unhealed childhood traumas.
As I have written before, nothing will ever change in this world as long as people believe the pretty, seductive lies of charlatans. And why do we fall for charlatans? Because we are emotionally blind. Because we learned in our cribs that "obedience" is the price of love. We learned that speaking truth to power (first our parents, then our bosses, then our politicians) is dangerous. We learned to look the other way.
Christina Koch sees a crew. Alice Miller saw a ship full of people still trapped in the emotional prison of their childhood, unable to take the wheel because they are still desperately trying to please the ghosts of their parents.
The Tortured Planet is Running Out of Time
Miller asks if the "tortured planet" will leave us enough time. Look at the news. Look at the violence. Look at the hypocrisy.
I see evil everywhere. It masquerades as human, acting as if it has a personality, pretending to be good, caring, and loving. It only shows its true colors when no one is watching. These are the people who refuse to be crew. They want to be first-class passengers, or worse, the pilots who are deliberately flying us into the mountain so they can feel in control.
Until we resolve childhood repression, it will always be the same shit, different asshole. We will keep electing narcissists. We will keep destroying the environment because we cannot feel empathy for the future. We will keep abusing children, who then grow up to abuse others and the planet.
The Weight of Repression As I’ve written before, resolving childhood repression is the only "vaccine" against the manipulators and narcissists who exploit this blindness. Until we have the courage to face the fears and the pain of our past, we aren't really "crew." We are just reenacting. We are dragging that heavy box of unresolved childhood repression around, and the older we get, the heavier it becomes. "Resolving childhood repression is the vaccine against the charlatans of the world who exploit those who are still emotionally blinded by the unresolved, repressed emotions of the children they once were."
To be a member of the crew—truly—requires something terrifying. It requires us to stop looking out the window at the pretty Earth and instead look inward at the ugly wounds. It requires us to consciously face the repressed fears, the rage, and the sadness of the child we once were, who was not allowed to feel and think freely.
Most people won't do it. It is easier to blame the other political party, the other country, or the neighbor down the street. It is easier to be a passenger who complains about the turbulence than to walk into the cockpit and admit you have no idea how to fly because you were never allowed to grow up.
Conclusion
Christina Koch’s words are the destination we must aim for. Alice Miller’s words are the journey we must take.
We cannot be a functioning crew if we are still emotionally four years old, pretending to be adults, screaming for a parent who never showed up. We cannot save the planet if we are still trying to save the illusion of our perfect childhood.
I am not sure we have the time either, Alice. I see the sociopaths winning every single day. But I also know this: Once lit, the flame of truth will never go out.
And the truth is simple. There are no passengers. There are only those who have woken up and those who are stuck in childhood, without realizing it, unconsciously and compulsively reenacting their childhood dramas wherever they go and with whoever they interact with.
This is the core of everything I write about. We talk about saving the planet, we talk about space exploration, and we talk about "unity." But how can we be a responsible crew when most of us are still unconsciously and compulsively reenacting our childhood dramas?
The Illusion of the Passenger Most people live as passengers. They wait for a leader to tell them where to go, a "charlatan" to tell them what to feel and believe, or a partner to make them feel whole. This passivity is a direct result of childhood obedience. When we are taught that our survival depends on suppressing our authentic feelings and truths to please our parents or others who symbolize them, we lose the ability to think freely. We become "emotionally blind" passengers on a ship we should be helping to steer.
The Destination is Truth People say it’s the journey, not the destination. But when you finally arrive at the truth—when you pierce through the lies and the illusions—the destination is ecstasy. It is the freedom to see the world as it is, not as our trauma dictates it should be.
If all humans could find the courage to feel what they were never allowed to feel as children, they would see that the "evil" we see in the workplace, in politics, and on the global stage is just disastrous reenactments of childhood dramas. Once our repression is resolved, we don't need to be "taught" love. Love is what remains when we are free of repression, and the lies are gone.
We are all the crew. But being part of the crew requires consciousness. It requires us to stop being "obedient children" and start being "responsible, mature, conscientious adults" who refuse to participate in the charades of the malignant and the hypocritical.
The planet is tortured, and time may be short. But the choice remains ours: Will we remain passengers, blinded by the repressed emotions of the child we once were? Or will we finally take our place on the deck, see the truth, and start acting like the crew this Earth deserves?
Let’s choose to open our eyes to finally see. Let's choose to be the crew.
To read more about liberating yourself from the emotional prisons of the past, check out my book, A Dance to Freedom: Your Guide to Liberation from Lies and Illusions.
