Variety gives us ability to adapt

Dream about G__ coming back from Ibiza. He looked and sounded a lot like A___, and the dream brought to the surface feelings I had with A___, how it was always, “This is just how I am,” or “I know I’m wrong but this is just how I am.” And me on the other end, either complaining or giving in but never setting limits.

Well G__ is not A___ and I’m not the same Brian I was seven or eight years ago. The first thing I want to do is I want to be like everyone was on Star Trek TNG “Conundrum.”

Star Trek episode [sc., TNG: “The Masterpiece Society”] last night about a eugenic society that has a closed community on an isolated planet. Suggestion is that humanity’s failings, on an individual and group level, are what cause it to strive and learn and discover, and the variety among all of us, including differences in abilities, much of which we cannot see the use for, gives us the ability to adapt to an environment that can change quite suddenly.

The other implication was that if a community is closed, it’s best to leave it closed. The colony would have been destroyed violently and suddenly if it had been left alone. But having helped it, it might now die a much slower and more painful death – since it is lacking enough of a mix of skills across its people in order to run a balanced society that can adapt to change.

Of course it’s also clear that this was just as much the fault of the founders of that society and all who kept it up, as they genetically engineered themselves to be able to manage the present perfectly, but were also perfectly incapable of dealing with an unexpected event.

Lessons from this. One, don’t get involved in other people’s problems that don’t involve me. If it’s G__ and his work, for instance, or him and his ____ ___, he will come to a faster conclusion – possibly after suffering severely but quickly – if he is left to face his own problem alone.

Two, cherish my own failings and weaknesses. They are what make me able to deal with unexpected circumstances, what make me resilient, what make me able to rise above, what allows me to surprise myself and others. More than anything, it’s God within me – that mix of light and dark which is the balance and sum of all things.