When the mini-trailer for the new Star Trek movie came out last week, I got pumped, and that was only seeing it online. I?ve yet to see it on the big screen.
So … yeah. I?m a Trekkie. Now, I don?t love all the different shows, or the movies, either. But I?ve been a Star Trek fan since I was a kid. My earliest memories of Star Trek?and some of my favorite as a kid?were those on Sunday nights, when my parents would order in Chinese food, and we?d eat spare ribs and fried rice and watch StaWhen the mini-trailer for the new Star Trek movie came out last week, I got pumped, and that was only seeing it online. I?ve yet to see it on the big screen.
So … yeah. I?m a Trekkie. Now, I don?t love all the different shows, or the movies, either. But I?ve been a Star Trek fan since I was a kid. My earliest memories of Star Trek?and some of my favorite as a kid?were those on Sunday nights, when my parents would order in Chinese food, and we?d eat spare ribs and fried rice and watch Star Trek on WPIX, Channel 11.
And specifically, I remember watching the episode with the Gorn?the scaly dude Kirk does battle with, mano-y-mano?where Kirk concocts some gunpowder-based weapon out of minerals on this barren planet, and blasts his opponent to the ground with some rock stuff shoved in a tube, like a home-made grenade launcher. And whenever the Gorn would come on screen, my parents would shout ?Rock Stuff!?, and laugh.
Ahh. Good times.
But the reason I love Star Trek?I?m a true fan both of the original series and [i]The Next Generation[/i], but not really of [i]Enterprise[/i], [i]Voyager[/i] or [i]Deep Space Nine[/i]?is that Star Trek really wasn?t about outer space, but?as M. Scott Peck writes in his book, [i]In Search of Stones[/i]?inner space. In the episode with the Gorn, Kirk has his enemy defeated, and about to kill him. But he doesn?t. Kirk spares his life. Even with the action, it?s the morality play that intrigues us most.
Along those lines, I want to give you here a passenger from M. Scott Peck wrote in that book:
[i]When I was still practicing psychotherapy I used to tell my patients that they were hiring me as a ?guide through inner space.? There, I believe, is where the real adventure must be. And to succeed at ?deep? psychotherapy, the patient must be every bit as much an explorer as any astronaut, driven by curiosity about his own thinking process, his dreams and his genes, his memories and blind spots, his feelings and follies.
Indeed, I think there is much more riding on the ?conquest? of inner space than there is on the conquest of celestial realms; the key to the preservation of our civilization may reside in our coming to regard the exploration of our unconscious minds as ?the final frontier.? And I am a ?Trekkie? precisely because the real subject of ?Stark Trek? is not so much intergalactic travel as the inner journey of the travelers.[/i]
As good drama of medium can do, it challenges us to consider who we are, what we think, and why we think and feel the things we think and feel. It can also get us to question how we behave.
Of course, I don?t watch Star Trek because I?m looking for it to be a moral compass for me, but I?like many fans?relate to it because, deep down, it?s more about the questions, than the answers. While set in outer space, it?s really about inner space.
The same is true of Finders Keepers. Even though I?ve set some of the story in fantastical realms?including my goofy version of Eternity?at heart the story is really about the characters, and how they begin to question themselves, how that impacts them, and what they do about it.
On a personal note, I?m not sure if I?m an inner space astronaut or not, but I am curious about behavior. About my own behavior. My ongoing personal quest is to become a better man today than I was yesterday, and a better man tomorrow than I am today.
So I read and I listen and try to talk to people who seem to know more about these things than I do, and hope that I?m making progress, that I?m overcoming at least some of my flaws. I know that no matter how long I work at it there will always be more to do, but I figure that if I really want to evolve as person as much as I tell myself I do, then I to have to accept the fact that, while I?m likely to realize some things about myself that will be a pleasant surprise, I?m also going to learn some things that I might not like, that might even make me cringe a little. Shining the light on things in the dark.
Learning. Exploring.
The reason I?m a Trekkie is that there?s this sense of adventure. Looking at things that are strange and new and exciting. And things that get me to think. Not just traveling physical distances, but perhaps more importantly, journeying inward, so that I can take what I learn and then incorporate it into how I am with other people, passing on something good and positive, something that will live on even long after I?m gone.
Post edited by: rcolchamiro, at: 2008/02/13 19:01
