rockoval

I had a lazy afternoon today, and being the nerd I am, I watched a few Star Trek reruns on Spike TV. It's funny how a silly television program can really get you thinking.

The first episode was on of The Next Generation where Riker and Jordy discover a wounded Romulan on a hostile planet. It is found that Worf is the only person on board with the ribosomes that can save the man's life. He refuses to be a donor due to the his hatred of Romulans. The Romulan, in turn, says he would "rather die than accept Klingon filth." It's so sad that, that type of racism is so common here on Earth. I'm sure that there are many Arabs that would refuse to give blood to Jews and vice versa. I know it's futile, but I wish that racial strife would end, not just in the middle east but everywhere.

In one of the episodes of Voyager, Janeway has a near death experience. It turns out that much of what she saw was caused by an alien presence. As of late the whole idea of near death experiences really interests me. What fascinates me is that no matter how hard I think, I cannot define "consciousness" in any coherent way, yet I believe I have it. How can one know if something can be destroyed if one can not define it? That's why I still believe that there is a possibility of an after life. Or maybe there's nothing. I want to know the unknowable, and there's the rub. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come...

The episode that I really related to was the one where Voyager had come across an unusual Nebula. Harry becomes infatuated with a holodeck character named Mariana. The weird thing is, the character becomes infatuated with Tuvok. It turns out that a woman who lives alone on a space station in the nebula has hacked into Voyager's computer. She created the holodeck character so that she could interact with the crew. You see, it is her job to keep the nebula from igniting so that her people have something beautiful to look at. She's lonely though, which is why she wanted to get to know the people on Voyager.

What's funny is that, I somewhat do the same thing with the internet. I don't have many friends and have a lot of free time. It's summer so I'm not in school, and I don't have a job right now because I'm trying to start up this piano tuning business. Lots of times I get very little social interaction with people all day, except for what I get here on the Web. Like Mariana, I love being alone, but hate being lonely, so I try to reach out to people from afar. And my avatar is a nebula! I need to find a way to make some new friends, in person. Any suggestions?