A thank you to Star Trek and the fandom. (sorta personal, sorry)

Well, keep watching Spock in the original series, and ignore what you perceive to be the sexism in it because the simple fact of the matter is that it was a different time. The original series was very radical and almost subversive in how it approached things though because it was about breaking down barriers and changing things --changing the world, and trying to make it a better place wherein we were all accepting of each other regardless of sex or color or nationality. It was about our working together as a human family, and moving beyond our personal biases and prejudices. Spock is very much a loner in the original series, yet in some ways he was also the most human character of all. He was by definition introverted, feeling he had to bury deep things that his Vulcan heritage would frown upon or consider shameful. He was a stranger in a strange land sort of, apart from his own race and living amongst a crew made up mostly of humans who tended not to hide their feelings and emotions, and these were the people he chose to make his friends, colleagues, and family ultimately. Wait until you reach "Journey to Babel" --what I'm talking about is very much on display there in various respects.

And don't take this the wrong way, but you should consider seeing a Social Worker to help you work through some of the PTSD stuff if you aren't already.

I think one of the reasons the original series managed to strike a cord with so many people though is that it also spoke to loners on some level even if that wasn't truly one of the intents of the series. There's so much there about friendship and love and what it means to be human, and we see it early on in the show. Pike struggles with the responsibilities of being Captain and how it weighs on him; Kirk struggles with the idea of having to strand, or worse yet, kill his best friend. Then we meet young Charlie, who as an adolescent not raised in the company of human beings, doesn't know how to act around people, or how to properly express interest in a girl --a true loner in that episode if ever there was one.

At any rate, a line from the ship's doctor in "The Cage" stands out in my mind here, which I feel I should include in closing, for whatever it's worth to you:


"A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on, and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away".


I'm glad you're enjoying the original series, regardless of how or what brought you into it.

/r/startrek Thread