Challenge Day #15

Star Trek

Star Trek, the original series starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley was a show I grew up watching with my dad.  He and I loved to sit and become absorbed in the adventure, the technology and the possibilities of other worlds.  I must admit on some level I liked it even more when I found out my mother didn’t like the show and thought it was unrealistic.  Unrealistic or futuristic I’m not sure – but the themes they dealt with were controversial and all around me.  For me, Star Trek invited people to explore their belief systems through story in a way that was acceptable for its time. 

Episodes like The Enemy Within – where Kirk splits in two creating an evil and good Captain Kirk or Let That Be Your Last Battlefield – where we encounter Bele who has been pursing Lokai for over 50,000 earth years for allegedly leading a revolt of people who are black on the left side against the ruling order which is black on the right side. Underpinning the entire series is the difficulty in living one’s mission/principles when faced with situations you believe to be unethical. In The Return of the Archons we discover the prime directive, “No identification of self or mission. No interference with social development of said planet. No references to space or the fact that there are other worlds or civilizations.”  Hard to do when you land on a planet where the inhabitants are living a static 19^th century earth style existence. Countless times the theme of noninterference played out planet after planet.

In later Star Trek movies, this same idea of living one’s principles is explored when Star Fleet potential command cadets are tested with the Kobayashi Maru, a test designed to measure their character. The good of the one versus the good of the many. Every time I watched this show I was faced with looking at my reality and recognizing it wasn’t everyone’s reality.  That my way – my truth – wasn’t the same for everyone.  It was humbling. 

Today I see the same ideas playing out in cartoons especially anime and movies like Kung Fu Panda, Avatar both versions, How to Train Your Dragon and others. Each uses story to explore alternative ways of thinking, helping to create a sense that there may be more than one truth, more than one right way. 

One of the most powerful articles I’ve ever written is about the Bag of Truth.  The idea that each of us holds our own bag of truth and at times we may need to open the bag take a look inside and rethink some of our choices.  Having our own bag of truth might be fine if we didn’t try to force it on others.  If we could only all learn to live the prime directive in some way and still boldly go where no man has gone before. Following the prime directive and being humble isn’t easy.