beam me up

===

“Is this the logical thing to do?”

Captain Kirk

“No, but it is the human thing to do.”

Spock

———

—

—

“Live long and Prosper.”

Spock

====

Well.

On Friday, Leonard Nimoy, the actor who was Spock on Star Trek, died at the age of 83.

I was a quasi star trek fan. Enjoyed the show but didn’t schedule my life around it. But, I admit, I never turned it off when I had it on.

All that said.
Spock was bigger than Life.

In fact … while it was just a sci-fi tv show … it was Spock who maybe gave us the best life lessons. He maybe even gave us youngsters the most insightful business lessons <albeit we may not have recognized them as such yet>.

Logic versus the human thing to do.

The constant battle for ‘what is the right thing to do.”

The Spock-Kirk dynamic made “Star Trek.” The Enterprise’s part-human/part-Vulcan 1st officer always seemed to keep Captain Kirk balanced. Spock was always involved in the logical versus illogical <or less obvious> thing to do.

But it was Spock’s constant battle between acting logically and acting “human” … and the Life truth that they can be at odds … that created the bigger context for what made Star Trek so interesting & thoughtful.
It would be far too simplistic to suggest Spock taught me that ‘logically’ translates into always putting the needs of the many first.

Simplistically it seemed easy to understand … only to find in day to day life … difficult to practice.

Does logic clearly dictate that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?

Well.

Logic requires that some evidence be offered to support a claim like that. And if we are simplistic … we can.

It is an unfortunate truth but Life is much more complex than some fortune cookie wisdom like Spock’s thought.

It is a grounding thought.

A good thought.

But one fraught with peril in reality.

—-

Which “many”?

–

Which “few”?

–

“Outweigh” what needs?

–

“Outweigh” which needs?

–

“Outweigh” versus whose scale?

–

For what purpose?

–

To whose benefit?

–

Benefit as measured by the few or the many?

–

Who chooses the proper benefit?

–

Simply asserting logic dictates a decision is flawed.

It is flawed because he taught us that logic always needs to be balanced by humanness.

Well.

I could suggest Spock should have taught more business management classes because this is a lesson we seem to have lost.

Logic is always a good place to start when making a decision but it doesn’t always lead to the actual decision itself.

Just as common sense doesn’t always dictate the best thing to do, or the right thing to do, logic is simply one aspect to making a decision.

Whew.

Those words & thoughts, Spock lovers or not, just made a whole bunch of business people uncomfortable.

Sorry.

That is what Spock really taught us.

Decisions don’t have formulas and decisions are not always simple <despite the fact we would all love them to be so>.

All I really know is that if we seek to “live long and prosper” we must balance logic and a higher purpose type human value.

 
What does this mean?

Sometimes what we do appears illogical <to others> … and yet it is a logical decision to us <our self>.

Regardless.

On Friday, Leonard Nimoy, the actor who made Spock famous, died at the age of 83.

It sounds illogical but I hope his last thought was ‘beam me up.’
——–

The Wrath of Khan (1982)

“Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

Spock