tragedies

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Lower_Decks_(episode)

[nerd hat]

In this episode of TNG, a junior officer who's had some trouble with the concept of being a Starfleet officer (she feels that the Fleet has been unjust to her in various ways, troubles with authority, etc) is sent on a dangerous mission. Part of this involves being sent back to the Enterprise aboard a tiny life capsule; there's a good chance that she'll be killed. As it happens, she is.

[/nerd hat]

When I saw this episode, I was struck by the question: is her death a tragedy? I guess the answer is: it depends. If, during that long dark journey, she was alone and terrified, quaking in fear of her death - that would be a tragedy. But if she were okay with things - if she really accepted the consequences of her decision (she volunteered for this mission) - and thus the chance of her death - then from that perspective her death is not such a tragedy. (On the other hand, it would perhaps be a great loss to the rest of us if we were to lose such a person - the world perhaps needs more such people. This is a paradox*).

It is these thoughts that led me to think of a myth, of sorts. (I'm into created mythologies). While Sito was taking that long dark trip, maybe she had the chance to talk to someone - someone who helped her accept the possibility of her own death, and be okay with that, so that when she died, she was not afraid. The myth is that everyone, before they die, has that chance - to talk with someone (in the myth, one particular person) until they can accept the contingency and finitude of life. (I think Nietzsche might say: until they learn to love fate).

This myth has a dark version. In this version of the myth, everyone talks to someone - but this conversation is not about acceptance; it's about - let's say the realization of the unalterability of sin. I say "let's say" because this pair of myths have an interesting feature: only one of them can actually make sense. It's meant to be a conversation, one that enables the dying individual to see a truth - not a coercive process meant to bring them to believe something, by any means necessary. And only one of these two opposing visions of the world can be true. The question is: which? (If you want a good fictional exposition of the dark myth, go watch Hard Candy).

* The paradox is, I think, only apparent; but it's important and revealing to figure out how it is resolved - to see how these two perspectives on death interact. Part of this, I think, involves seeing why the fact that deaths are (in some cases) no tragedy does not make it okay to kill people. I think that this involves understanding that the business of human life is action: we do the best we can, but what happens, happens; it is the past, and our actions all concern the future.