I think there’s a palpable reason why I’ve started watching Star Trek: The Next Generation again. In the fictional future presented in the program humanity has evolved beyond want, money no longer exists and avarice is not something that drives people. There is civility, curiosity and optimism.
This hopeful television show, which first aired when I was a teenager, ushered in a decade of possibility. I certainly felt that way. Looking up at the stars back then I saw what was possible ahead. Now I fear the future.
I’m afraid of what the data mining of social media is doing to us as a species, has done to me already. I’m scared of looking around social media and finding pointless, cruel arguments highlighting our differences rather than our similarities, and world leaders following suit. I feel that mental health is at risk for all searching for solace in such pessimistic activity.
It’s not as though optimism vanished. It’s now harder to see among the detritus favoured by our online forays. I remember Gabe Khouth and I being frustrated and disgusted that unboxing toy videos and angry urban motorcyclist vlogs got vastly more views than our optimistic, funny videos received. How downtrodden I felt when, not only that we were struggling to find an audience but that the audience was being directed towards something which did not appeal to our better angels, to coin a phrase. Perhaps our videos were too truthful.
And as I’ve been learning recently, when it comes to the internet, truth is boring.
It would seem what is less boring is the search for the baseness in all of us, because if left unchecked, it keeps us coming back for more.
The truth is what we see, and if I keep on looking at the lowest rung, or even worse, yearning to be like those who search for the bargain basement emotionality in all of us, I’m afraid of what I may become.
So, in a tangible way, I’ve begun returning to what brought me optimism in the first place. I’ve been appreciating what I have right in front of me, rather than what I don’t have. I’ve been doing less “doomscrolling” and limiting my opportunities to do so. And, yes, I’ve been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Resistance isn’t futile. Optimism is still out there, and I want to look for it.
