For the last few months, Amber and I have been watching Star Trek episode by episode… Generally 1 or 2 every other day, more on weekends. It’s been rather fun going episode by episode, and seeing the larger story arcs that can get lost if your simply watching it syndicated. We’re presently in the TNG:Season 6/DS9 Season 1 time period (there was cross over of the shows for awhile for those of you who don’t know your trek history, so we find ourselves jumping between series.)
One of the things that I’ve started to realize over the course of TNG is that some of my more “odd” quirks may actually stem from TNG. I did grow up watching that particular series… and whether or not I realized it at the time, I think I did idolize some of their traits… Some of which are rather obvious:
Logic: I always admired the emotionless vulcan’s and their sense of logic. I understood it could be used to a fault, but Spock and Sarek (TNG side) were both very cool people in my mind… Choosing to eliminate emotions. There are of course other reasons I felt emotion wasn’t the best of things in the world, which might explain why I gravitated towards them, but still, it was a great focal point.
My inability to show weakness to certain people: I used to think that this stemmed directly from the Logic reason above, however, I think it actually stems from Picard openly acknowledging that he can’t show weakness to his crew in multiple episodes. For example: Picard refuses to get heart surgery and when he finally agrees to, he still doesn’t disclose to his crew he is getting heart surgery. He saw it as a sign of showing weakness, something a good captain doesn’t do. I think this might be at the root of why I don’t like going to Doctors… As well as a million other things that I would preceive as me showing weakness to people who know me.
My love for computers and solving the problems they create: As cool as Scotty was solving engine problems, I grew up watching Jordy and Data deal with computer programs the original Star Trek didn’t even scratch the surface of. Holodeck characters who come to life. Repairing corrupted data logs. That was something that thrilled me… And although most of what they say is techno-babel on Trek, some of it actually has quite a basis in computer science.
Those are just 3, but I’ve been catching a ton of little things along the way. It makes me wonder what traits I may have picked up from Nintendo games… Hmmm… I don’t love mushrooms or running and jumping very much… I do like building things with blocks though :-).