Throughout the quadrant, distress beacons are going off in all directions. Holonovels would have you believe that some hero goes off on a quest that results in those in need being saved. Reality isn’t nearly as kind.
Those with the most well equipped ships are usually the least likely to assist another captain in need. The most capable doctors, psychologists, teachers, lawyers etc typically end up working for those that need it the least. You’d think that after being privy to so much they’d be the happiest most generous person but usually all that happens is that they end up with a sort of mental cancer that seeks out more and viciously attacks anyone that wants things to be more equitable.
I sometimes wonder if I’m being naive for not being just as cutthroat as those in power. In nature, the strong eat the weak. Plants fight for sunlight, water, and nutrients, using tricks like smothering competitors and releasing chemicals to secure their own resources at the cost of others. In many religions, evil forces take advantage of those who are vulnerable or misguided, condemning them to suffering in this life and possibly even in the afterlife. Even the luxuries in my own life are enabled due to exploited people half way around the world.
When I really think about it, the only thing that stops me from being selfish is remembering all the times others went out their way to help me. There is no incentive for anyone to help me; I’m not well-connected, rich, or particularly attractive. In some ways, me helping others is just my way of trying to return the favor. Plus, I try to remember that the only things that separate them from me is different biology, environment and experiences.
I won’t pretend that I enjoy helping all the time, sometimes I just don’t want to pay the cost especially for some people that don’t seem to deserve it. It also feels discouraging at times because it feels like using a squirt gun to put out a fire. During those times I feel discouraged, I try to remind myself about chaos theory. The theory states that small changes can result in large unpredictable outcomes.
In other news, the kids are definitely no longer kids. They all seem to be exhibiting their “teenhood”. Officer “Teen”o has a long distance girlfriend he talks to daily and has exhibited some worrisome signs of deep-seated anger and depression. Ensign Bella has started to become a tad more emotional. Chief engineer Noah has actually mellowed out a lot. The crew has definitely become more stir-crazy in our small ship. I may need to try and upgrade to a bigger place even if that may be financially risky.
As for myself, I feel paradoxically more sane and disconnected from reality than ever. My experiences and beliefs have me at an unusual place. Having delved deeply into S.T.E.M-y stuff (Science technology,engineering and Mathematics), I have many new lenses by which I can look at things. Paired with my budding spirituality it has led me somewhere very unexpected. It’s hard for me to describe other than saying I feel both fascinated and terrified. It’s a place that’s filled with perfectly logical contradictions, nonlinear timelines and realities that overlap in unexpected ways.
At the most, I would say that Truth is context-specific; a notion underscored by Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems. The theorems say that there exist true statements that cannot be proven within the confines of that system.
So even something absolutely objective like math is incomplete, undecidable and possibly even inconsistent. Gödel also showed that a system cannot demonstrate its own consistency. This means that a system cannot use its own rules to prove it doesn’t contain any contradictions. I believe this is applicable even when it comes to beliefs that seem to contradict known scientific phenomena. Physicist Tony Cubbit et al. said, “Even a perfect, complete description of the microscopic interactions between a material’s particles is not always enough to deduce its macroscopic properties”.
If some of the most objective things in reality can’t be fully known, what luck do the rest of us have in determining bigger Truths? At the end, certain Truths may be *real* under certain contexts but individually I think its impossible in this life to have all the contexts. So any sweeping theory of reality will suffer even worse than maths attempt to describe everything. Our understanding and articulation of Truth is inherently bound by the limitations and context of the systems we employ.