Nerddom: The Wisdom of Next Gen

Today I'd like to impart to you some of the longstanding wisdom of "Star Trek:  The Next Generation."  Specifically from Episode Six of Season Five—"The Game"—Because it demonstrates, so beautifully, the value of being an incorrigible nerd.  (I assume it's okay to discuss spoilers from a show that stopped airing almost twenty years ago . . .)

The episode begins when Commander Riker is introduced to the game while taking his shore leave on Risa.  Part of a flimsy, innocent-looking headset, it taps directly into the brain through the eyes, creating a mental display of the game's playing field while one wears the headset.  While the outside world is still visible in the background, the foreground of the player's visual range is taken up by a playing field occupied by disks and cones—the object being to mentally coax the disks into the cones.  When Riker asks, "How do I do that?" he is told, "Just let go.  Relax.  You'll do it."

Sounds creepy reading it, I know, but Riker doesn't know he's in the middle of an introduction to 45 minutes of a popular sci-fi drama.  So he follows the advice, finds the disk falling into the cone, and blinks in not-quite-unpleasant surprise as the game floods his brain with endorphins.  Naturally he takes the game with him back to the Enterprise and is seen for the next few minutes of the show urging his coworkers to try it.

Meanwhile we follow the story of Wesley Crusher, who arrives on the Enterprise after a term at Starfleet Academy and quickly makes a connection with a young woman in Engineering named Robin Lefler.  His mother, recently acquainted with the game (Riker's been replicating headsets for his friends) tries to rope him into playing it but backs off when he explains that he's got a date with Robin.

Well, on this romantic outing to—you guessed it—Ten Forward, the game comes up in conversation.  They marvel at its rise in popularity.  "Don't you think that's a little strange, everyone playing it at the same time?" asks Wesley.  Robin rolls her eyes.  "It's just a fad.  It's here this week, next week we won't even know it existed."  Considering its massive popularity, the two decide to see what all the fuss is about and try it out themselves.

Oh, wait, no they don't.  Because they're MASSIVE GEEKS.  "I wonder how it works?" says Wesley.  Robin smiles—"Why don't you try it and find out?"  "I'd like to know a little bit more about it before I try it."  "I bet if we worked together we could figure it out."  ". . . Yeah!  We could hook it up to one of the computers!  The medical programs in the lab can be set up to emulate human responses."  "I notice it uses a visual interface; we could connect it through an optical sensor."  And before you know it they're off to perform critical scientific analysis of popular recreation.  Because it's awesome.

Robin looks at a readout of the game's simulated effects and Wesley notices something peculiar on another screen.

Of course when they run this analysis dark things are revealed, they begin an adventure, and ultimately save the Enterprise from imminent danger—danger that would have in no way been detected by the unsuspecting crew had two nerdy kids not taken nerdy initiative and done nerdy things with mainstream entertainment.  Because nerddom rules and must be respected.  And the fact that I'm citing an already nerdy source to make a point should in no way detract from the message of this post, which is essentially the lesson we all must learn:  BECAUSE NERDS!  That's right, be a nerd!  Be a geek!  Respect nerds!  Respect geeks!  Encourage those laughable little figures typing furiously away at code, reading great big books with teeny tiny print, putting every other bug they find under a microscope, sketching dragons and bouncing with delight when they spot the words "BAD WOLF" graffitied under an overpass.  You never know.  We might just save your lives one day . . .

The Lie, The Truth

It is, to my mind, among the most insidious and pervasive of lies—that love is "conditional".
Everyone, to some extent, believes it.  We feel deficient and therefore unworthy of the attention we need to be happy; we try to make our most appealing features more visible to win respect—we think "If they see how talented I am, then they'll accept me!" or some such other nonsense. And then we encourage the lie when we pick and choose our friends based on trivialities:  "I can't believe he doesn't like rock'n'roll!"; "Ooh, he's so funny!"; "He'll just slow me down if I talk to him."

Many people become enslaved to the lie.  One little idea—"You must be worthwhile to be recognized"—and a thousand problems arise, starting when the basic insecurity, "I'm not good enough and I know it!" leads to a resolve to keep everyone else ignorant of the fact.  These poor souls become frustrated, trying to cover their shortcomings with excuses and prominent displays of their own merit, sometimes boasting outright, sometimes employing false modesty.  They become competitive, belittling others to raise their status.  They begin to crave recognition rather than actual love.

You see, love—being in its true state unconditional—is no respecter of persons.  It gives generously, without favoritism.  So even though love itself would make these people happier, they reject it, convinced that by submitting themselves to its authority they might lose their competitive edge.  That, and the fact that recognition (a mere substitute for love) acts more like a drug than nourishment keeps them coming back for more, with less and less satisfying results

Furthermore, they distrust anyone—especially former friends—who might see their true colors, afraid that such people will cease to be impressed by them.  It's vital to them to be thought of as important rather than to be thought of with affection.  Ambitious, insecure, and deep-down very guilty, they lose the ability to maintain healthy relationships.  Oftentimes even the most loyal and forgiving of friends are forced to separate from them.

A society based on the lie is easy to predict:  Expectation precedes generosity, ambition precludes equality, empathy is scrapped for practicality, and deceit runs rampant as people scramble to devise more and more underhanded strategies to come out on top.  It may start out fine at first:  In one instance we praise moral behavior and so believe we have encouraged morality, but in reality we may just encourage people to compete for a standard that will inevitably show them to be lacking.  . . . Of course I'm not saying we ignore or dismiss virtue, I'm just indicating how subtle the lie can be:  It is good to encourage morality, so long as we understand that no one is any less worthy of love for his or her failings.  No one is "better" or "worse" when it comes to who they are as a person.  And the people worrying anxiously over their egos need to be aware that their efforts are, blessedly, for naught.  There is love for them in abundance, if and when they are willing to accept it.

God is love.  (1 John 4:7—21)  Man's love may fail, but God loves all.  In the western world we hear it constantly, but it is nevertheless of everlasting value:  God sent His Son to die for us while we were still in sin and  completely unlovable.  (John 3:16)  He does not just love "the good people" or "the people who try to be good".  He made us all, He loves us all.  Thanks to Christ's sacrifice, any one of us can renounce our sin by simply asking for forgiveness.  We were born sinners, and so sin:  We don't happen to sin and are thus sinners.  We all need to be reborn, or ultimately spend eternity in hell.

Some have described hell as a place where people simply remained unloved; others describe it as a lake of fire.  It's both.  The bible says "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth," (Matthew 8:12) and that there will in fact be "unquenchable fire" (Mark 9:43); fittingly, it also describes the judged being turned away from the throne and so put out of the sight of God forever, (Matthew 25:41) thus ending the grace period we spend deluded about our own worth and losing all hope of feeling God's love—but it is also a very physical, painful existence.  No one should have to go there.

You have to be remade before you can really understand, but there's no reason anyone should hang back from salvation.  It would mean nothing if God simply "let" everyone into heaven:  The quintessential feature of heaven is the chance to be close to our Creator, and we can't appreciate any of that in our current state.  And I personally think (I could be wrong; I'm in theoretical theology here) that in "transforming" humanity as a whole by Christ's sacrifice, God would need to override our will, the very thing that makes us people and thus so special to Him.  Anyway, He's God:  He is good, but He's also the Authority here.

Some readers might be annoyed that an innocent philosophical discussion turned into religious rhetoric so fast.  I can't talk about the philosophy without bringing in the whole package, though, or people might think my reasoning and my faith were at all disconnected, and I have God to thank for both.  So . . . thank you, God!

Mom's Da Bomb

It's not Mother's Day, but I wanted to give a shout-out to moms anyway.

A lot of people get away with such base selfishness these days:  They tell their enabling friends to do things for them, giving longwinded rationalizations rather than simply asking nicely; they feel entitled to such treatment and show no appreciation or affection for other people; when they make a mistake or intentionally do something wrong, they blame other people; and when their friends inconvenience them, they remember it forever.  They believe "first come, first served" and defend their acquisitions from the needy with zeal; they use their words to hurt others, calling it "constructive criticism".

At some point you want to speak out against this asinine behavior, but your hands are tied.  You know how they'll respond:  "Who are you, my mother?"

We are not their mothers.  And there's nothing much we can do.  But out there, all across the globe, are millions of women who are, in fact, mothers, working tirelessly to raise their children properly.  To teach them to say please and thank you, I'm sorry and I forgive you.  To make sure they learn to share and to be polite.  It's a big job, and it takes so much sacrifice.

As Helen Parr points out in"The Incredibles" alternate opening: "Do you have any idea how much suffering would fail to take root if more people were just good parents?"

This is for all the moms who spend so many hours on their kids, even if it interferes with work or sleep or recreation; who stop what they're doing to play peacemaker between feuding siblings, who enforce discipline regardless of the fuss the kids put up, who drive their kids around for school events when they'd rather not, who keep on providing healthy dinners even when fast food would be easier and more popular, who navigate the daunting terrain of glares, tantrums, lies, pouts and underhanded schemes their charges throw at them, with little or no hope of gratitude.

Well, it's a long time coming and it's the least any of us can do:  Thank you.  Thank you so much, all you selfless, selfless moms.  Thank you for being so devoted to your job.

And thank you to my own mom, now also my best friend, who not only did everything mentioned above but always listened to us (even when we were being idiots) and respected our thoughts from the moment we could express them.  Moreover she always managed to get a bible-reading into the morning routine, which did us the most good by far, pointing us to the Rock that sustains and redeems us all our days.

Day One

Hello and welcome to my blog!

I am a geek and aspiring novelist interested in math, psychology, sociology, literature, zoology, biology, microbiology, physics, chemistry (pretty much every science except meteorology and geology) art, history, language, and drama, who probably "should have" been an atheist but find myself instead a Christian.  I do believe in Jesus Christ, I believe He is the only way to heaven, I believe every word of the bible is true, that He is the Son of God and is coming back, and I believe He is flawlessly wonderful and awesome.

My intention in writing this blog is to reflect on various topics that interest me and share my analyses with other interested parties.  Since I am particularly fascinated by all forms of storytelling, literary and cinematic critiques may take up a lot of space.  I do have other things in mind, though.  (It's my first time blogging; I'll figure it out.)

I understand that the academic mind is given to delusions of infallibility; it is my hope to avoid that mindset.  I don't want to think I'm always right, I want to do right as often as I can.  If and when I address any difficult or sensitive issues, I hope to keep an open mind, write a rational and unaffected post, and welcome corrections or criticisms that might come my way.  As I said, I'm not infallible, but that's the hope.

Obviously my name is not Ilythia Major.  That would be weird. . .  Unless someone is actually named Ilythia Major, in which case I snap my fingers and say, "Dang! that would've made a great name in a story!"  Props to you for sounding like an exotic Harry Potter character.