(Inner) Space...The Final Frontier

Have you ever much  thought about human emotions?  How accurate are the things we feel versus the things we know or determine by logic?  Can we always trust our emotions?  If not, when can we trust them?  Are the answers to these questions the same for everyone, or do they vary with individuals?   Personally, I have never been sure how much to trust my emotions.   In a previous blog I explored a negative experience I had with emotions in my life, so I am a bit leery of relying on feelings too much.  Still,  I think denying our feelings is denying a part of our humanity.  

When I was a teenager, my favorite TV show was Star Trek.  If you are a SciFi geek like me, you know that the five-year mission of the Starship Enterprise was to explore "Space, the Final Frontier...To boldly go where no man has gone before."  Although some of the acting was atrocious (think William Shatner), the stories were compelling and the themes dealt with contemporary issues such as war and racism.  We got to meet all kinds of aliens that were really intended to get us to examine ourselves and our fellow Humans (as opposed to Klingons or Romulons, for instance). 

The alien from Star Trek that made the biggest impression on me was the Enterprise's science office, Spock.  Like all Vulcans, he was devoted to Logic.  The defining characteristic of the Vulcans was that they had learned to supress all emotions.  Their history had been a bloody one, like that of Humanity, and so, to save their race from completely killing each other off,  they had learned to suppress their emotions and rely only on Logic.  Their philosophies disdained all emotions.  They lived their lives based solely on what their enlightened intellects told them.  Or did they?

The original Star Trek series was soon cancelled due to poor ratings.  But the show and its characters lived on in the imaginations of us Trekkers, and it was eventually revived in the form of movies and a new show, Star Trek: The Next Generation.  This show took place 100 years  after the original series.  It featured better acting (think Patrick Stewart), better special effects, and an even more enlightened bunch of Humans and aliens.  (Lingering sexism still present in the 22nd century apparently ended for good in the 23rd century.  The TNG crew's mission was "to boldly go where no one had gone before.")  And this show introduced ship's counselor D'Ann Troi, who was a Betazoid, and therefore an empath, or one with the ability to sense others' emotions.   So clearly, Troi is the antithesis of Spock.  While he was all Logic, Logic, Logic, Troi was all about Feelings.  Not only was she into her own emotional adventures, she was the ultimate busy-body, going around the ship sampling what emotions other members of the crew were feeling.  This served her well in her role as ship's counselor, and her psycho-babble was often sprinkled with her impressions of what others were feeling.   I don't remember her relying much on Logic.

The dichotomy between Spock and Troi, and between their respective alien races, is made more interesting by the fact that they are both half Human.  So, Spock's devotion to Logic and Troi's emphasis on Feelings are watered-down, sort of, by that pesky Human DNA.  If only each didn't have that unruly Human half, they could be completely devoted to a more enlightened path, one of pure Logic, or pure Emotion, depending on their inclination.  (Could the writers of these shows have been more subtle?)  Especially with Spock,  many stories dealt with his struggle with the feelings from his Human side, the part of him of which he is ashamed.  Troi is hampered by her Human half in that she can only read others' emotions, not their thoughts, as full-blooded Betazoids can do.

I have often dealt with similar struggles in my own life, although perhaps not to such a degree as Spock and Troi.  My wife Dana  tells me that I am much more logical than she is, and I agree with her.  She is definitely more emotional than I am.  I am sometimes too logical and she is sometimes too emotional.  I guess that in our marriage, I am Spock and she is Troi.  As you can imagine, conflicts have arisen because of these differences.  But as our daughter has said so eloquently, about her own marriage, what is wrong with Dana is good for what is wrong with me, and what is wrong with me is good for what is wrong with Dana.

But to say that either of us is more one thing than the other is not to deny that other part of ourselves.  I am often struck with how well thought-out some of Dana's opinions are.  She has taught me important things that she has determined through her own use of logic.  I usually prefer to rely on rational thought, but sometimes I am most sure of things that I just intuit, things that I just feel.

I have often told Dana, and she has not objected, that motherhood is a form of insanity.  Is it logical to love someone, even your own child, so much that logic and reason concerning that person are only minor considerations?  I would say no.  However, I am loved that way by my own mother, and I am thankful that Dana loves our children and grandchildren that way too. I don't believe, however, that a mother's way of loving a child diminishes the importance of a the usually more logical love a father extends.  A kid needs to be seen more dispassionately by a parent, perhaps to prepare him for the way the world will see him.   I also recognize that not all mothers and fathers love their children according the emotional/logical patterns that Dana and I tend to follow.   

This post didn't exactly go where I thought it would, but it is a start.  I expect that I will deal with this topic again later.  The important idea for me in all this, is that I often face a Spock-like struggle regarding the things that I feel and the the things that I think.  I think that others probably face a similar struggle.  I tend to mistrust or deny my feelings in favor of a more logical viewpoint.  My wife and others approach things in the opposite way.  They tend to believe what they feel more strongly that what they think.  Why do we have some different approaches?  Which is more valid, logic or emotions?  If the answer varies with each situation, then how do I know, how do I decide?  Do my answers to such questions only apply to me, or are some of them universal?

I don't know, but, it is clear that as Spock and Troi and all the other aliens and Humans in Star Trek zoomed around the universe at speeds exceeding that of light (despite the objections of Mr. Einstein), they learned as much about their own inner space as they did the galaxy. That inner journey is one we can all boldly take.  And, as Spock would say, it will be .. Fascinating.