I grew up on Star Trek, both the original series and everything subsequent, and my favorite character was always that half-human, half-vulcan science officer, Mr. Spock. It never really occurred to me to wonder why he was my favorite, but I think I have finally figured it out anyway. I am Spock. No, I don’t have pointy ears, and I don’t have a sixties haircut, but I do have a human mother and a vulcan father. At least I think I do.
My mother is a being of much emotion and very little logic. She does not like to, you know, think things through. If she has a feeling about something, she is probably going to go with that feeling, even if it makes no rational sense whatsoever. This can be a very good quality about her sometimes, and the rest of the times it will drive you absolutely nuts. I can’t tell you how many times I have had this exact conversation with my mother:
Me: “What!? Why would you do that?!”
Mom: “Well…..(nonsensical explanation)”
Me: “Yes, but (sense and logic)!”
Mom: “Oh, well I guess that’s true. I didn’t think of it like that.”
On the other hand, we have my father. A very intelligent man who is extremely logical, he takes every factor into account when making a decision, except for human emotion, which I don’t think he entirely understands. He gets very confused when people are upset with him, because in his mind he has made a very logical and rational choice, and he is always frustrated with other people when they base their decision making process on how they feel. If something is the right thing to do in every logical way, except for the fact that it will make someone really sad, he will do it anyway, and have no clue why he is surrounded by all of these unreasonably sad people.
And so then there is me. Trapped between two worlds of reason and emotion. I try to balance them both as best as I can, but I know that I often stray too far to one side or the other. Like Spock, I try and use logic to trump emotion as much as possible, but I also realize that sometimes you just have to follow your dreams, even when it makes no earthly sense to do so. I guess, in the end, even though it might have been nice to have two normal, well-adjusted parents, I’m glad I got both perspectives, and I hope that I can keep myself even enough so that my children won’t have to write something like this when they are grown. Because they have plenty of other things to write about.