"Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope and, crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." -Robert Kennedy
I'm about to let my geek colors fly and embrace my inner nerdiness. You have been forewarned.
I've always been a fan of Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry and his vision for our future, a brave future exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations, and boldly going where no one has gone before.
In short, because volumes could be written on the topic, Roddenberry's vision is a type of utopia centered around human society's future evolution as we reach out to the worlds and subsequent civilizations around us within the stars. It's a time in earth's future when we've evolved to a point, not of perfection, but to one of being able to look beyond our more selfish individual base instincts to one of reaching out to other. Other in terms of others not apparent, on the surface, to be like us at all; other in terms of embracing the inalienable reality of the importance of respecting life outside of ourselves; other in terms of attempting to understand, support, and embrace infinite diversity within infinite combinations; other in terms of the immutable truth that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is for everyone, not just ourselves. This is what Star Trek has always meant to me. This is the vantage point from which I go forth into my own exploration of life in the universe around me. That's why "To Love So Well The World" exists for me as a blog. Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto.
Yesterday something I watched made me weep almost uncontrollably, multiple times. No, not the presidential debate, sad as it was, but rather the newest episode of Star Trek Discovery. I would suggest that if you don't want to encounter a SPOILER DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER.
In the third season of Star Trek Discovery, the intrepid crew of the USS Discovery has been forced, in order to save the universe, to leave their own time period in a one way trip and head into the very distant and unknown future. In this new future, they discover that the United Federation of Planets (UFP), once a great unifying force in the galaxy dedicated to the above mentioned vision and it's exploratory arm Starfleet has been all but destroyed. They then begin their quest to unravel the mystery of what has brought down the United Federation of Planets and all they hold dear while at the same time trying to discover what this means to them, their identity, and their mission.
Much like another Star Trek series, Star Trek Voyager which follows the lives of the crew of the USS Voyager who have been displaced on the other side of the galaxy in relation to their home in the Alpha Quadrant, the crew of the USS Discovery must learn what it means to follow the vision and goals of the UFP while essentially being on their own, displaced in time, while experiencing life threatening challenges.
Without getting into to much plot and scene work here, suffice it to say, their moving commitment to the ideals of the Federation and as such, Gene Roddenberry, and by extrapolation, the ideals of the United States is heart moving. When faced with becoming something else, something less than, and betraying those ideals mentioned above in order to expedite their plight or save their very lives, they choose instead to make a stand, asserting: "That is not who we are; that is not what we're about. We're Starfleet." And I wept.
I wept in large part because I think we as Americans are in the middle of a existential election and have been losing our way. In the past 3-4 years we've embraced a political reality that is diametrically opposed to those ideals mentioned above and the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Other is now dangerous, less than, and somehow wicked because other is not like us. We seem to be embracing a world where it's okay to make fun of people for whatever reason; to name call in order to denigrate and diminish other; to boldly lie about anything and everything even in the face of verifiable reality and truth to the contrary; to warp cultural understanding of reality into something it's not because we fear to lose our own personal identity and reality; to disregard science and verifiable fact in service of personal preference or convenience; to abuse other families and children through killing, separation, and caging because they are not like us, their skin is a different color or their gender and or sexuality is different than ours and we fear them. These are just some of the ways we seem to have gone off track. And I wept.
I hope we can find our way back to our mission, back to our goals, back to our ideals instead of embracing this fear filled and self-focused isolationism that we seem to have embraced over the last 3-4 years. I hope we can once again embrace the Great Experiment and the noble and bold goals it embodies. I hope that we can again be the United States of America, albeit not a perfect union, but one committed to the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
I am not a flag waving kind of person. My patriotism is a very personal and private thing for me. I have too much respect for our flag to treat it frivolously, salaciously, or manipulatively. I have never even flown a flag at my home because I was concerned that, with my kind of schedule, I couldn't give it the respect and care that it deserves.
I am also not a huge fan of war nor do I elevate our service people to the level of celebrity or worship as many do. I do, however, have a deep respect for the danger in which they place themselves for what we call service to our country. For that act alone, they are heroes in my book.
I feel that way about all of our first responders, paramedics, police officers, firefighters et cetera. They are, in their own way and in their own time, heroes. However, so are our teachers, nurses, doctors, and all of our essential employees and in fact everyone is a hero to someone.
In my everyday walk often I'll smile at someone doing a job that impacts my life in some way, be they a convenience store clerk, fast food employee, customer service rep, or whatever and say to them, "you're my hero!" They always brighten up and flash a genuine humble smile. In that moment, with those simple words, you give acknowledgement to their lives, their worth, and their seen and or unseen struggles. You are saying to them that, "I see you. I value you. I appreciate you."
We all have the opportunity to be, and indeed are, everyday heroes within the scope of our lives. Not everyday or in every way but all of us are at times heroic and make a difference to one another.
I find it telling and deeply disturbing that our President speaks the way he does about people. I hate the name calling. I hate the belittling. I hate the divisiveness. I hate the casual brutality of his constant dismissiveness of anything that doesn't serve his ego, image, or agenda. I hate his presidency for what it has done to our society socially, psychologically, and spiritually. Be that as it may, even he, the 45th President of the United States is a hero to many and that, my friend, is something that we need to acknowledge, try to understand, and wrestle with.
“My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. Continue to allow humor to lighten the burden of your tender heart.” #MayaAngelou
I awoke just a bit ago feeling very chilly and I hate the cold. It's still dark out and the temperature is hovering at freezing. I'm living in a rolling home, a 22ft motorhome, and I lazily parked for the night without propane or water. So there's no water for tea and even if there was, there's no propane with which to heat the water for tea. So I guess I'll shiver in silence. You would think that after going on two years of this kind of lifestyle I wouldn't let myself get into this kind of predicament but then you would be underestimating my laziness. ;-)
If it's too cold to sleep and definitely too cold to get out of bed what else does one do but surf Facebook? Come on, you know you do it! So, when I looked at Facebook it threw up my most "liked" picture of 2017.
Now as anyone who knows me can tell you, I take a lot of pics! I really expected a pic of some beautiful vista, flower, or bike trail - one of my usual pics that is. Instead I was confronted with the picture above of an empty 10ft X 10ft storage unit I had just managed to gut. I guess my embrace of minimalism attracted admirers or perhaps voyeurs who wished to accomplish something similar in their lives. The caption of the pic is as follows:
For the first time in my adult life I no longer have a leased storage unit. Now it's true that I still have some work to do on my embrace of minimalism but it's all under one roof now and able to be better sorted, re-homed, dumped, or made into a burnt offering. Making progress...
It was true. I had storage all of my adult life up to that point and had probably spent, all said and done, around $40,000+ on storage over the years. And for what? To shuffle things from one pile to another because I was hanging on to things that no longer fit in my day to day life. Oh to be sure, there were valuable piles, some valuable in sentimental attachment, others valuable in monetary attachment but the operative word there is attachment.
Whatever my reason, it was an unhealthy attachment to things that no longer fit into my life for one reason or another. I had moved on but instead of letting those things go, I dragged them along with me.
I originally simply wanted to do away with the expense of warehousing all of this stuff I had managed to accumulate over the years. It was pretty simple really, I didn't want the expense of caring for this added baggage any longer. Little did I know that this purge would soon spill over into other areas of my life as well, such as my relationships with people, personal, professional, and spiritual but that's a story for another time. My brain is too cold at the moment to even explore and or unpack the topic.
These are the things I was thinking in the wee hours of the morning as I snuggled under my blankets trying to keep warm in the frosty darkness just before twilight. Living a life of minimalism in a rolling home is great for introspection and that's good because that's all I can do right now. It's too cold to stick my nose out from under the covers!
