The Tao of Star Trek
This week I was confined to bed with the flu. Bid deal, join the club, right?
Once I got over the mind-numbing headache and the all of the body functions that made the bathroom my preferred room of choice, I watched a lot of TV.
Is it only me or was this week a literal catasrofuck?
Between my CNN phone alerts and the news itself, I found myself with no bejeezus. It was scared right outta me by our current political situation.
But then I remembered I could binge-watch the remaining first season of Star Trek Discovery on my computer and rest comfortably. The war between the Klingons and the Federation seems tame compared to CNN.
In the final two episodes, both the protagonist and antagonist are badass women (which, of course, I love) and one has been a mentor to the other. Cornered, and in what appears to be their final battle, they form an uneasy alliance to defeat their shared enemy. With death literally at the door, the mentor tells her apprentice this story about fear.
Once I know fear how do I defeat it?
On the eve of battle, on a cold and windless night, an old general turned to a young soldier. ‘Tomorrow,’ said the master,’you will know Fear.’ The young soldier who had not yet experienced the agony of war looked at the general with quizzical eyes. ‘How will I know Fear if I do not know what it looks like?’
The general replied ’You will know Fear because it speaks very fast and it speaks very loud…’
‘If that is how Fear acts, recognizing it is easy.’ But as the young soldier considered the general’s advice, she asked the question facing us now, ‘Once I know Fear, how do I defeat it?’
Later, the battle-weary protagonist answers her mentor’s hypothetical question as she struggles with the loud voice of fear persuading her to abandon all of her principals in hopes of a win. This felt so apropos to me I just had to share.
We defeat fear by telling it ’No.’ No!
‘We will not allow desperation to destroy the path of righteousness. No.
We will not break the rules that protect us from our most base instincts. No.’
Sometimes in “battle”, it appears that we do not have the luxury of principals. But in the end, they are ALL we have.
God, I love Scifi!
Carry on,
xox
