Sometimes I wonder if our search for extra-terrestrial intelligence isn't more a search for ourselves.

The problem is for centuries, humans have always considered themselves the center of the world. Little by little, this notion has been removed, through discoveries and realizations. But every time it was possible to stick to the importance of the human being, this was favored. For instance, we say today that the human brain is the most complex thing in the universe. Is it really? We won't say otherwise until proven otherwise! Extra-terrestrial intelligence can only be recognized as such if WE understand it that way. This means the ETI must be somehow like us, otherwise we won't even know it is there. But to be "like us" is being anthropocentric.
The problem is that we do seriously lack enough imagination to grasp what's out there in all those worlds the HUDF proposed to us.

looking for Life elsewhere is also a form of looking out there for what there is here.
But what there's out there, is almost certainly far more interesting, fascinating, mind-boggling and revealing than anything we can imagine today.
We must find out, we must expect surprises, we must accept what there is and perhaps we'll feel at home for the first time in our history, not on our planet but as part of the universe.

Raoul