Thank you, Mr. Nimoy
I don’t usually get emotional at the news of some famous person or other passing. Even when someone famous dies tragically young, to me it is rarely more than a passing impression of tragedy and waste, just one more poor soul who couldn't make it out of life alive. I’m just not that emotional of a person, I guess; or I've seen enough of the world that I've become somewhat immune to tragedy, my capacity for empathy diminished by the unending tide of tragedy-porn that passes for news in our time.
When I heard that Leonard Nimoy had passed away, I sat at my desk and cried. His death was not entirely unexpected — it had been well-known that he had been suffering from COPD, brought on by years of smoking — something he was at no loss to communicate to younger folk, so that they may avoid a similar fate. Yet, the news that he would no longer be among us literally brought me to tears. I had never met the man, let along spoke with him, and yet when I heard that he had died, it felt like a real part of my life was gone forever, leaving a gap that could not be filled.
When I was a child, I loved science and history. I could spend hours reading books by myself, taking in everything that there was to learn and know about. I wouldn't say I was particularly lonely, because I was often doing what I loved, but I did find it difficult to make friends. Other children were fun to be around and interact with, but I somehow lacked the ability to really connect with them on a more personal level. As a result, I always had a lot of acquaintances, but few real friends.
I also struggled as I grew up to reconcile two distinct worlds that I inhabited. I loved science, technology, and mathematics, and yet I grew up in a very religious household. I attended church at least every Sunday (and often much more often) with my parents, where things just were. As I grew, I began to read theological texts like I read science or history books; cover-to-cover, making sure that I took everything in and understood how one event would relate to another. I learned how all ‘good’ moral behavior can derive from a relatively small number of essential truths. And yet, society deemed these two worlds incompatible — in science, truth can only be derived through logic, reason, and most of all, experiment — while humanity, morals, empathy, duty to society — were tenets of religion, given to mankind by their benevolent creator alone.
Leonard Nimoy changed everything for me. From the first time I saw Star Trek reruns before the evening news came on, I understood that Mr Spock was more than just an exotic alien crewmember of the USS Enterprise — he was the very embodiment of humanity, of the struggle between his logical (Vulcan) and emotional (Human) sides, played out as an underlying subplot to the fantastic adventures of the crew.
Spock was the science officer, but was no geeky, lab-and-library-bound loner like I was —indeed, he was the biggest hardass on the ship! For all of Kirk’s bluster and passion, Scottie’s never-say-die, get-it-done attitude, and all the other adventurers — it was Spock alone who could lay out any man with a simple one-handed grip on their neck. Spock was an inspriation — he taught me that science was something that related directly to the Universe. He taught me that pursuing knoweldge could be an adventure, one that could stretch to the ends of the Universe and back. He made me realize that science was something that could be fun to do for a living.
But much more than this, Spock was the key to reconciling the worlds that I inhabited, and showed me that they were really one and the same. Spock alone showed me how human emotions and desires — empathy, moral behavior, friendship, teamwork — can be derived entirely logically from our own place in the Universe, and our relationship to those we cohabit this world with. He made me understand that there is no real conflict between the religious quest for the meaning of life and the scientific one. That it does not matter from where truth is derived, only the nature of the truth itself. That on the most fundamental level, all truth is unified — it is only our path to it that differs. That conflict arises from our inability to understand things from another person’s point of view — and therefore that even the most intractable disagreements can be overcome by the mutual understanding of each other‘s situation. That at the most fundamental level, all truth is out there waiting to be discovered and understood, if only we have the humility to put its pursuit ahead of our own ego and preconditioned ideas.
Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most… human. — Capt James T Kirk
Spock may have been a creation of a show writer, a character built into the Star Trek narrative in the ancient tradition of the Wise Outsider; Deus ex machina. His character, his soul, however came from Leonard Nimoy.
Without Nimoy’s skill, his nuance, his dedication to his craft, Spock was merely the narrator — the character whose job it was to explain the plot so that the show could move on to the next commercial break without losing the audience’s interest. Nimoy made him so much greater, and in the process, made me see the Universe as a bigger, more wonderful and aweful place than I could have possibly imagined. He made me understand that goodness and dignity were as essential to the pursuit of a meaningful life as any individual achievement. He showed me that there is nothing in this Universe that cannot be discovered, that cannot be solved by a focused and dispassionate dedication to finding a solution. That peace is a both a more logical and moral solution than conflict.
Leonard Nimoy taught me that my life could be worth living, that my dreams were valid, and worth following. And for that, I can never thank him.
