Happy Star Trek Day - How Has Star Trek Positively Shaped Your Life?
TODAY’S QUESTION: WHAT POSITIVE IMPACT HAS STAR TREK HAD ON YOUR LIFE?
So, I know this question won’t resonate with everyone in the group. For those that it does resonate with, and you know who you are, what positive impact has Star Trek had on your life?
MY STAR TREK STORY
My story with Star Trek goes back to my earliest days back in the 1960s. I vaguely remember watching the last couple of seasons in the TOS original run. Then, fortunately, it went into reruns in Kansas City almost immediately on our UHF station.
That ran on late Saturday afternoons and I would stop what I was doing to go inside and watch Star Trek.
When Next Generation came along in the late 80s, it became and remains my all-time favorite television series. I hung on through DS9 & Voyager and then life intervened.
It was only years later that I doubled back and realized what a great series Enterprise actually was and have since consumed the newer series in real time.
For me, Star Trek has always been about Gene Roddenberry’s positive vision for humanity.
1) That there will be a time when humanity will set aside the worst in us and aspire to the highest in us.
2) That there will come a time, beyond our current economic models, where technology will abolish human need.
3) That there will come a time when humanity joins the family of advanced spacefaring cultures that likely populate the galaxy around us.
Roddenberry’s vision came about only after humanity self-destructed and rose again from those ashes. It has always been an remains my hope that we can reach these lofty goals without suffering through that fate.
More than anything, Star Trek taught me, from a very early age, to dream big both for myself and for our species. That vision has and continues to profoundly shape my world view. It has many times girded me against the impulse to turn cynical, give up on humanity.
We are a species with amazing potential and Star Trek is always there to remind us of that.
Happy Star Trek Day!
Ray