Star Trek is recurring theme here at Wisdom and Life. In fact I even mention Tapestry briefly in another column. I’ve been watching Star Trek again recently, Voyager, Next Generation and The Original Series. They all have their merits. Q, played by John De Lancie happens to be my favorite recurring character. He mostly plays foil to Captain Picard of The Next Generation. He has shown up a number of times in Voyager and Deep Space Nine as well.
Image from:
Wikipedia
One of the reasons Star Trek resonates so deeply with me is because the stories work on more than a superficial level. Take Tapestry for example. In that episode Q meets Captain Picard in the afterlife giving Picard a chance to go back and change his life. As anyone who has been following Wisdom and Life for any time at all should understand:
ANY change you make to your life whether big or small will spin your world into an ENTIRELY different trajectory.
Just as Captain Picard discovered in that episode. One of the best scenes in Tapestry is seeing Picard laugh. Humor is not something readily seen in Picard. And it’s one of the events that makes that particular episode stand out.
The ONE change, Picard made helped him survive what ultimately brought him to Q in the afterlife. However that ONE TINY change completely unraveled the fabric of the life he had before. It’s why when EVER anyone asks you if you could change any ONE thing in your life would you and what would it be? As challenging as it would be, the ONLY answer you can and SHOULD give is:
I would change nothing!
Next Generation ran for seven seasons and there are so many standout episodes from its seven year run. I have three all time favorites:
1. Tapestry is leaps and bounds ahead of my other two. Secretariat at the Preakness ahead
2. I Borg
3. Inner Light
See?
Science Fiction, when done correctly, has so much to offer. As I said at the top of this column, Star Trek works on so many levels. There is the space opera feel. But then each episode works on an emotional level to and teaches us something about ourselves. Each one of my favorites has a teaching moment and they all work on the emotional level more than many episodes do.
Tapestry, especially is an important episode in my life, only because the episode teaches us that we cannot alter the fabric of our lives and expect nothing to change. The entire Star Trek Universe is something everyone should experience.
Be Happy! Be Well! Be Positive!
Blessings to you.
—
Chris
Once you realize that life is eternal,
That our souls our eternal,
That we return to light and physical over and over;
We then lose all our distress
We then lose all our fear of dying. For there truly is no end.
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Martha Orlando
I’ve always been a huge Star Trek fan. And you are so spot on about how the episodes really make one think about life and the choices we make.
Blessings, Chris!
Jason J. Marchi
Great blog post Chris! As Ray Bradbury preached, “Science fiction is the best fiction,” because it evokes the past and invents the future. So much of what was “science fiction” in idea years ago — cell phones, robots, wireless transmission, manned space travel, and so on — is today science fact. The great seers among scifi writers showed us many possible futures and in this regard we have both a promise of great things to come and a dire warning of the dangers to come. No other fiction works at such a high level intellectually or emotionally. So it is wondrous that you have connected to the best of science fiction, like Star Trek, for without these stories, allegories, and inspiring visions there would be far less good hope for the future of humanity. This, hands down, makes science fiction the BEST fiction. Period.