Future Never Truly Leaves The Past Behind

The '60s Star Trek series is outstanding science fiction with humans battling their emotions on far away planets of the future

By Scott McLean

Human nature keeps standing in the way of intelligent action. Our emotions often cause things to turn out very badly, and it's nearly impossible to break free from our emotions.

I'm referring to love, hate, jealousy, envy, greed, anger, etc. But for some reason we never give up hope for the best. Hope that we will overcome difficulties, and ultimately that civilization will make real progress (not the kind associated with bulldozers clearing land to make way for strip malls and apartment buildings) toward the improvement of who we really are on the inside, call it our minds, souls, or simply what makes human beings run...

Getting to that higher level may require us to reach out beyond our own planet in order to learn about ourselves and achieve significant inner growth. We are able to learn from others. But we don't have alien beings to learn from, at least not to my knowledge.

Someday if we do encounter higher beings throughout the universe, then we will become enlightened like never before, or be destroyed in the process.

The struggles of humans adapting to the future, including interaction with other planets and their inhabitants, are complicated by human emotions.

The original Star Trek, which recently celebrated it's 40th anniversary, touched upon just about every human struggle, and shows that the future of human civilization intersects with the past at every moment in time where human emotions reside. It's pretty cool stuff, and a lot of fun!