I’ve been trying to find better distractions besides the usual media/TV thing, though I admit every now and then an innocuous episode hits you when you least expect it. If you haven’t watched DS9 and don’t want spoilers just stop here.
Besides trying to make use of my Kindle Cloud Reader I started going back and watching episodes of Star Trek and it’s respective spin offs. Maybe because of the 50th anniversary. An episode hit close to home, and it will sound silly but I saw a lot of interesting themes in it, themes that as a teen I obviously was oblivious to. Deep Space 9, Season 2 Episode 9, Second Sight. Questions about recovering from the loss of a spouse (Sisko) and finding love again as a widower. A husband whose wife is a species that ‘mates for life’ and is so miserable she starts to project a telepathic version of herself that falls in love outside of the marriage. In my youth I just thought it was a romance episode, seeing it through the eyes of a divorcee gave it new life. In the end the husband, realizing his wife’s unhappiness chooses the only option he has left, he fulfills a crowning achievement and in the process dies. The only way to set his unhappy wife free.
Anyone who has gone through a divorce or a break up can probably relate. It’s a difficult thing to feel that in a marriage you have gone from a source of happiness to one of unhappiness. Thankfully humans don’t mate for life, and there is no need to die to set one’s unhappy spouse free. Social commentary has always been a hallmark of scifi but every now and then it blindsides you. The tone and theme of the episode raised some very important things I have to think about.
