Or maybe you can!
I’m a Star Trek fan, especially the original series. 1966. Every Friday night. I was 13. I was mesmerized.
Then all the movies followed. Then more series: The Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, Discovery, and newer ones that I haven’t seen. And more movies with The Next Generation crew. And newer series coming in 2020. Then J.J. Abrams came out with his movies, which were prequels to the original series. I went to the first one of those very skeptical ... how was he going to convince me that those were younger versions of Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the others? But he and his cast pulled it off! Good job! I know Gene Roddenberry would’ve approved!
In 2016, the 50th anniversary of the original series, the BBC re-ran episodes of the original series every Friday afternoon for a while. Oh, that was fun! And interesting to watch with older eyes.
In 1966 it was all so futuristic and technologically advanced with the computers, transporters, and warp drive. In 2016 – and today – many of those technologies actually exist! Computers, medical scanners, that cell phone we can’t live without ... check out this article for 10 ‘Star Trek’ Technologies That Actually Came True.
This is the fun of fiction and fantasy ... dreaming of what could be. The possiblilities. The what-ifs.
This is part of what our “big, created-in-the-image-of-God” brains are for. For figuring stuff out. For creating new stuff. For dreaming of something better.
And, yeah, these big brains will keep us up all night watching those cat videos. And watching the sky for the aliens to appear. And make us want to congregate with other big brains who are engaged in similar activities. We seem to enjoy being either really dumb or really smart in large groups. The larger the group, the more fun it seems.
But these big brains do other stuff, too. Like dream big. Create big. Imagine wonderful worlds where anything is possible.
There’s important purpose behind all the fun stories we make up for our kids ...
We’re teaching them how to dream, how to think, and how to solve problems.
The dreamers, the thinkers, and the solvers showed us how to fly, took us to the moon, gave us indoor plumbing, and connected us to everybody everywhere with just a click!
And it all begins with a book ...
Let’s teach our kids to love to learn and wonder and explore.
Let's teach them to love it so much it will be a life-long habit.
So, as Spock would say, they will live long and prosper!
God bless