It’s not too dramatic to say that Star Trek changed the course of my life. Not to the degree that it changed the lives of others, like the woman James Doohan once saved from suicide. But without Star Trek, my life would have been much different, likely worse. Star Trek gave me a hobby that allowed me to connect with fellow fans, breaking through emotional walls; a closer connection with my family, especially my dad; and inspired a love of science that sticks with me to this day. None of that makes me terribly unusual, of course, but there is one important, personal way Star Trek changed my life, and it all comes down to, in the end, Mr. Spock.
It doesn’t take much to knock your sense of proportion out of whack when you’re a kid, especially when it comes to being angry. And as a kid, I was almost constantly angry, thanks to a series of injustices both real and imagined. I’d been taken to another state by my mother for a year, and when I was returned to my father, everything had changed. The kids I thought were my friends didn’t recognize me. We moved across the city to a small apartment. There was something off about my father that I couldn’t quite piece together, but he seemed different somehow, sadder.
As a result, everything frustrated me and made me act out: Schoolwork. Super Mario Land. The other kids who didn’t get it, with “it” being damn near anything, really. Granted, some of this was just being a little kid. Children just don’t generally have a handle on their emotions; it’s something they have to learn. But there was something else, under there. What nobody tells you about anger is that it feels good. Anger is a great emotion when you want to place blame, or more often than not pass the buck onto somebody else. You didn’t screw up, somebody else did. And sometimes this is true! Sometimes you really do get screwed over by bureaucracy, or some jerk you work with, or somebody you love stabs you in the back.
But usually not. One thing getting a handle on your anger teaches you is best summed up by a line in a movie I saw years later: “The tragedy of life is that everybody has their reasons.” Most of the time, when bad things happen, it’s because of incompetence and thoughtlessness, not malice. Few of us have genuine villains in our lives. And that’s hard to get, the idea that good people can stumble into doing bad things. It’s unpleasant, not least because of the unspoken question of what that means for your life decisions.
That shifting of the blame makes anger a trap for a kid. Kids aren’t taught to see the world in shades of gray. The Transformers or He-Man never faced a terrible situation that wasn’t anybody’s fault. If you’re angry, and have no grasp of the situation, everybody else is the villain. It’s a good way to build a persecution complex. But, when I was six, my dad sat me down to show me Star Trek, and talk about Mr. Spock.
Star Trek was different from the other shows we watched together. Kirk, Spock, and Bones never set out to punch somebody in the face. They always wanted to understand, and in fact tried to avoid interfering wherever they could, which notoriously wasn’t very often, but hey, they tried. They always came from a place of understanding.
Spock, my dad pointed out, was emotional all the time too. But he kept a lid on it. He used logic. He thought the situation through before acting. He considered other points of view and the context of people’s actions. Perhaps the best example of this, though not from the show, is in a small moment from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Kirk, ordered to take control of the Enterprise, walks into Spock’s quarters and tries to let him down gently that he’s been demoted. Spock isn’t angry; he readily acknowledges his friend is the better captain, and steps aside for the good of others, a subtle foreshadowing of Spock’s much greater personal sacrifice in the finale. Really, my dad said, the best thing to do when you’re angry is be like Mr. Spock.
This didn’t solve my personality flaws overnight, of course. But it gave me a framework to process my emotions with and a role model to look up to. Granted, I had all the grasp of formal logic you’d expect from a six-year-old. I didn’t suddenly turn into a calm, collected person. I was still angry, and it took years of work on myself to get that beast under control. Still, though, whenever I got angry, and it happened a lot, the question popped into my mind: How would Spock handle this?
As I got older, and got introduced to logic as more than brain-bending puzzles, I developed a series of steps to go through. The most important thing I learned from Spock was to not take my emotions out on others, but instead to go through what had happened. Why was I in this situation? Why was I angry? Was it fair that I was angry at somebody, or was I just experiencing an irrational emotion that was my problem? How could I communicate how I felt constructively, and was it related to the facts?
Without Star Trek, I wouldn’t be the person I am now. I may not always be the best person, although I try, but I’m a better person than I suspect I would have turned out to be without Spock to look up to. And I’m not alone in that. Part of the power of Star Trek is that it offers a genuinely optimistic view not just of the future, but of the people we can become. It’s the rare show where people aren’t fighting to stay where they are, but working to be better. And, 50 years later, that’s still something we need.
