Tactical Grace
03-03-2006, 00:06
During the lowest point of my depression a couple of years ago, I saw this episode of The Outer Limits - "Tempests". Even by the unrelentingly bleak and nasty standards of The Outer Limits' brand of existentialism, this episode was uniquely horrible.
What really got my full attention at the time was the grim voice of the narrator as he read out the introduction to the story:
"What is freedom but the ability to make choices? Between courage and cowardice, duty and love, or even... heaven and hell. The nature of the choices we make define us as human beings. We choose the world we inhabit."
Obviously that resonates with a depressed existentialist.
The story unfolded of a spacecraft carrying medical supplies to a stricken planet, crashing on a moon, and the crew trying to fight off poisonous spiders and trying to conserve oxygen while finding a way to contact the outside world. The main character is bitten by a spider and finds himself trapped between two worlds, one in which he has already been rescued and has a happy family life, and one in which he must escape the ship and summon help. He forgets which world is real, and must choose which one he enters forever. Reasoning that in one world his family is safe and in another world his family is at risk from the disease his medical supplies were intended to counter, he chooses to leave the "heaven" world and enter the hell of the crashed spacecraft, just in case he can save his family in the alternative universe too. He does manage to escape and raise the alarm...
...But then we discover that he is paralysed and hallucinating, along with the rest of the crew, as they are sucked dry by the spiders. :(
The narrator speaks at this point:
"Each of us creates his own world. We conjure paradises from our hopes, and nightmares born of fear. But what if they are both illusions?"
Those words pierced my soul. And do to this day. Never in my life have I had a darker moment. :(
I did however use that story as the inspiration for my UN Resolution here in NS, "Universal Freedom of Choice". :)
I guess it was the turning point though, a personal revelation I needed to have, as I realised what I was dealing with and later that year I began to repair my life. It meant some difficult decisions regarding my attitude towards my family and repeating a year at university, but here I am having done it very successfully indeed. I am not at all certain why I have written this up, but I never had before, so I figured why not? I remain an existentialist of course, but as I have learned these last few years, the philosophy need not be bleak. Faced with unwelcome truths, I made choices and shaped my own reality. It did not work for the fictional hero, but I guess for me, the moral of this strange story is, seemingly futile gestures can still shape your life, even if you appear powerless. :)
And a thank you to the four fellow players who listened. You know who you are. :fluffle:
What really got my full attention at the time was the grim voice of the narrator as he read out the introduction to the story:
"What is freedom but the ability to make choices? Between courage and cowardice, duty and love, or even... heaven and hell. The nature of the choices we make define us as human beings. We choose the world we inhabit."
Obviously that resonates with a depressed existentialist.
The story unfolded of a spacecraft carrying medical supplies to a stricken planet, crashing on a moon, and the crew trying to fight off poisonous spiders and trying to conserve oxygen while finding a way to contact the outside world. The main character is bitten by a spider and finds himself trapped between two worlds, one in which he has already been rescued and has a happy family life, and one in which he must escape the ship and summon help. He forgets which world is real, and must choose which one he enters forever. Reasoning that in one world his family is safe and in another world his family is at risk from the disease his medical supplies were intended to counter, he chooses to leave the "heaven" world and enter the hell of the crashed spacecraft, just in case he can save his family in the alternative universe too. He does manage to escape and raise the alarm...
...But then we discover that he is paralysed and hallucinating, along with the rest of the crew, as they are sucked dry by the spiders. :(
The narrator speaks at this point:
"Each of us creates his own world. We conjure paradises from our hopes, and nightmares born of fear. But what if they are both illusions?"
Those words pierced my soul. And do to this day. Never in my life have I had a darker moment. :(
I did however use that story as the inspiration for my UN Resolution here in NS, "Universal Freedom of Choice". :)
I guess it was the turning point though, a personal revelation I needed to have, as I realised what I was dealing with and later that year I began to repair my life. It meant some difficult decisions regarding my attitude towards my family and repeating a year at university, but here I am having done it very successfully indeed. I am not at all certain why I have written this up, but I never had before, so I figured why not? I remain an existentialist of course, but as I have learned these last few years, the philosophy need not be bleak. Faced with unwelcome truths, I made choices and shaped my own reality. It did not work for the fictional hero, but I guess for me, the moral of this strange story is, seemingly futile gestures can still shape your life, even if you appear powerless. :)
And a thank you to the four fellow players who listened. You know who you are. :fluffle: