illusion is hope born from fear

Day 2

In your own space, share a book/song/movie/tv show/fanwork/etc that changed your life. Something that impacted on your consciousness in a way that left its mark on your soul.

Last night, I watched Star Trek Beyond while I was typing up the Day 1's post. There are a lot of things that have impacted my life, in a lot of ways, but Star Trek is foundational, Star Trek is constant, Star Trek is forever.

And Beyond is a great example of why Star Trek is the forever-est of my faves. The crew overcomes all of their obstacles because they work as a team. Uhura, at one point, while talking with the Big Bad Krall, says that there is strength in unity and then, for the rest of the movie, the crew of the Enterprise proves that thesis. Each person contributes what they know, adds their strengths to everyone else's, and they win. They overcome all of the obstacles and save a station full of people, and, of course, each other.

Right now in America, with fascism on the rise, it's easy to fall prey to despair, to futility, because your one little person who hardly has the power to get up in the morning, let alone save the country, or the world. But it's not about what you or I or that one person over there can do, it's about what all of us, together can do. Of course, we can't be passive, we have to be brave enough to speak up, to offer our strength or our wisdom or our two hands. We can't be passive, but we don't have to do it all by ourselves, we can't do it all by ourselves. Anything we do, we do it together.

That's what Star Trek taught me, that's the cornerstone of my life. Uhura was right (of course she was, she's Uhura), there's strength in unity. And if we believe that and do that well then, maybe the Federation and Roddenberry's optimistic future isn't as faraway as it otherwise might seem.