Captain's Starlog, November 3rd, 2-0-0-4

Change is the only constant. How true that rings now. I always criticised others about blogging, saying how childish it is, and that it was attention seeking behaviour at its worst, since it clogs up an already garbage-filled Internet. Then change occurred, I start to see things from their view, and found that it is indeed a good way to let off steam, and keep tabs of our own growth, as we grow from strength to strength. History, even if it's only our own, in the making, with each new entry. I believe it was Frodo who said that the best anyone could get to living forever was in songs and books, and though the Lord of the Rings was a work of fiction, it is without doubt the method with which Tolkien will live on forever.

First entry, and yes as seen in the title, I am clearly a Trekkie, though you could consider me a late bloomer. I didn't grow up on Kirk or Picard, but the most recent iteration, Captain Jonathan Archer. My starship is the NX-01 Enterprise, not the NCC-1701 classification, without deflector shields, tractor beams, phaser arrays and quantum torpedos, just polarized hull plating, spatial torpedos, phaser cannons and magnetic tractors. There was no Federation yet, no Prime Directive, just Starfleet with no Vulcan commanders. I saw the pilot while on holiday in Malaysia, Desaru if I recall correctly. At 1200 midnight, alone in the hotel room with everyone conked out, I saw the Enterprise hit the threshold at Warp Factor 5. I was at my lowest then, having screwed up Common Tests, and preparing to do worse for Preliminary Exams. My prefectorial term left me with nothing worth remembering, I regretted not spending more time on my scouting, feeling fatalistic when I looked at the sum of the parts of my life, and saw it amounting to zilch. Nothing.

That episode ended on a cliffhanger, though I wouldn't call it so, because it didn't leave me hanging. I was beamed up, metaphorically speaking. At the end the crew was faced with an ion storm, which was an uncertain obstacle, since Starfleet never equipped its crew with what it needed most then during its maiden voyage, experience. The navigation officer Ensign Mayweather (Dickens would be proud of how that name seems so ironic now) advises to go around the storm. But our captain simply looks at the obstacle facing him, smiles and shakes his head gently. "No. Let's go through it." I found a new way to look at things, and no longer did I see the predicament I was in as a bane, but an experience waiting for me to go through it, to explore and learn more.

The song which plays when Enterprise cleared its moorings, moving out of star dock with the rest of humanity watching, and Archer commanding, "Bring us out slow, one quarter impulse. Warm up the warp engines, we're going into the deep blue." It plays everytime I face an insurmountable obstacle, with overwhelming odds stacked against me. It plays, and speaks softly into my ears, don't always find triumph when it doesn't exist, don't admit failure and go away defeated, don't avoid the situation, go through it and gain what is most precious, the experience. From out of the blue, Enterprise pulled me from the gutters, and I am all the better because of it. The show gave me back what I sorely lacked to face my trials ahead, the idealism and the faith. At the end of my journey, I would love to say that despite regrets in certain points of my life, there would be no other course I would have taken.

Perhaps that is why I never found God like those who tried to convert me. To all those who have in one way or another felt hurt or doubted their faith in God due to me, I offer my mea cupla (I believe it is used in this context). I have found my own way of seeing things, and having faith in something more worthy of trust, that humanity is still human, as long as we believe in it and put our life's work to it. The world today may be a different place if we put more faith in ourselves, than in some divine being who might right our wrongs, and forgive our sins, and heaven or paradise would await us at the end. Instead of "In God We Trust", I humbly propose, " In Humanity We Believe."

Deep. I'm probably sounding like I have gone off the really deep end, like the Marianas Trench. But I guess I'm doing my little bit in pushing what I believe, hoping that perhaps I would do some good in this first post. If you manage to read up to here, I commend you for your perserverance, and put across this little notion, perhaps you may have gained something from the traumatising experience of reading through this storm of random ideas?

I'll try and salvage this experience for you, by making sure you do gain something from this. A quote, from Samuel Butler.

"We can do very little with faith, but we can do nothing without it."

Sincerely,
Don