Examples of Deep, Knightly-Virtuous Truths, Learned From Science Fiction.

Examples of Deep, Knightly-Virtuous Truths, Learned From Science Fiction.

In raising children, we're often reminded how we've raised ourselves, in the lessons that we've picked up in our lives growing up, and even continue to do... as we pass on these nuggets of wisdom to them.

Obviously, this is true even of those of us who do not have children, and glean continuing lessons from our surroundings as we have since we began growing up - be it through the media of books, television, the Big Screen, etc. - we remember the things we've resonated with, the jewels of truth that made us stand up and take notice, within our moral/spiritual selves.

Most often, it seems, that it is through works of science fiction, that we learn these things of great depths, whether they be lessons of inter-cultural peace, the rights of sentient beings, what makes war cruel and how to avoid it, and how to maintain a stand... how to keep in check our influence from disturbing the natural formations of beings, governments, spiritualities and cultures in the lands/worlds/situations we find ourselves in which are not our own... the virtues of founding new worlds, and the repercussions upon all surrounding life and matter as a result... all these things.

Recognize it or not, these wisdoms we've been influenced by, through science fiction media, have largely been responsible for forming our present overall world views.

We have Star Wars, we have the Star Trek omniverse, the works of Isaac Asimov, all incarnations of Doctor Who, Quantum Leap, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica (both), The Martian Chronicles, Ziax II, the works of Jules Verne... all of these and far more, have shaped our lives and fed our moral learning hungers.

Now, often, whenever I'd quote a Sci-Fi character to point out a True Life Lesson, another might scoff... reminding me, as though I'd forgotten, that the character I'm quoting is "totally fictional" and "does not exist in real life"... but that's not the frakking point - the point is that the bit of wisdom is valid, has merit, and illuminates TRUTH... and I remind that one, that while the character may be portrayed by an actor to have said such, the words spoken were written by a non-fictional human being, with heart, spirit and soul.

Accurate Knowledge, Authentic Truth, Valid Wisdom.

I used to see people with bracelets that had the letters "WWJD" on them ("What Would Jesus Do?"), and while I would never put down the wisdom of ANY wise man, nor ignore, nor disregard, the fact is simply that in my own personal experience, I've very often had to tone-down any autism-intensified emotional explosion possibilities, and be far more forcibly resolute in *DIRECTING* myself *calmly* - so as for myself, I would often internally ask, "WWDD", referring to Lt. Cmdr. Data (RIP).

Yoda, Data, Dr. Samuel Beckett, Jean-Luc Picard, Spock, Adama, Obi-Wan... we all know the mentors...

I would like it very much if we all could share here, some of the Nuggets of Wisdom, the Jewels of Moral Lessons, the Silmarils of Virtue that we all have learned from science fiction that has touched us, resonated with us, and helped form us all personally.

I'll start...

There was a very sad episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, wherein Lt. Cmdr. Data had created his daughter, who died... in a scene that still gets me misty-eyed recalling it. But earlier on in that episode, Data instructs her in the importance of having goals which may, by others, be deemed "too lofty" - that if the goal is good and true, even if you think it something you cannot accomplish, to strive for it nonetheless... the scene goes like this;

****************************

Lal: I watch them, and I can do the things they do, but I will never feel the emotions. I'll never know love.

Lt. Cmdr. Data: It is a limitation we must learn to accept, Lal.

Lal: Then why do you still try to emulate humans? What purpose does it serve except to remind you that you are incomplete?

Lt. Cmdr. Data: I have asked myself that many times, as I have struggled to be more human. Until I realized, it is the struggle itself that is most important. We must strive to be more than we are, Lal. It does not matter that we will never reach our ultimate goal. The effort yields its own rewards.

Lal: You are wise, Father.

Lt. Cmdr. Data: It is the difference between knowledge and experience.

****************************

This, if listened to intently, speaks very deeply of a very high thing indeed.

I hope it speaks to us all

May The Force Be With Us Always

- Tarran

This quote from Yoda in the empire strikes back came to mind well reading this and I think that it fits here even if its not remembered by many people.

Yoda: This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things.

It stands out to me because many people live in their past or look for their future and miss the present.

yeltneb wrote: This quote from Yoda in the empire strikes back came to mind well reading this and I think that it fits here even if its not remembered by many people.

Yoda: This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things.

It stands out to me because many people live in their past or look for their future and miss the present.

EXCELLENT POINT!!

Fight Club
Tyler Durden: The things you own end up owning you.

Tyler Durden: It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.

Matrix
Morpheus: Neo, sooner or later you're going to realize just as I did that there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.

This is less uplifting, but it always rang true to me....

Agent Smith: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.

Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.

Agent Smith: I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it.

Like I said, not pleasant, but obviously someone thought up these ideas and as painful as it is to me, I can't help but feel the same way.

Aharon wrote: Like I said, not pleasant, but obviously someone thought up these ideas and as painful as it is to me, I can't help but feel the same way.

I hearya - and often, same here.

Monty Python



King Arthur: I am your king.

Woman: Well, I didn't vote for you.

King Arthur: You don't vote for kings.

Woman: Well how'd you become king then?

[Angelic music plays... ]

King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your king.

Dennis: [interrupting] Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU26EseuDoI

Shiny

Malcolm Reynolds: "I've got no answers for ya, Inara. I've got no rudder. Wind blows northerly, I go north. That's who I am. Maybe that ain't a man to lead, but they have to follow. So if you're going to tear me down, do it inside your own mind."

Captain America: I remember the first time I really understood what it was to be an American... what it was to be a patriot.
I was just a kid... A million years ago, it seems sometimes. Maybe twelve. I was reading Mark Twain.
And he wrote something that struck me right down to my core... something so powerful, so true, that it changed my life. I memorized it so I could repeat it to myself, over and over across the years. He wrote...
"In a republic, who is 'the country?' Is it the government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the government is merely a servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
"Who, then, is 'the country?' Is it the newspaper? Is it the pulpit? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it; they have not command, they have only their little share in the command.
"In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country; in a republic, it is the common voice of the people. Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak.
"It is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catchphrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man.
"To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.
"If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country. Hold up your head. You have nothing to be ashamed of."
Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right.
This nation was founded on one principle above all else: the requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter what the odds or the consequences.
When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world --
-- "no, you move."