
Beam Me… Anywhere, Scotty!
"Things are only impossible, until they're not." Jean-Luc Picard
I’m not a science fiction kinda guy. I’ve dabbled over the years but just can’t catch the vision. But I came across a quote from Gene Roddenberry, television screenwriter and creator of Star Trek, a show that gave us some of the most quoted lines from television:
“Live long, and prosper.”
“I’m a doctor, not a brick-layer (fill in the blank)!”
“I’m giving her all she’s got, Captain!”
“To boldly go, where no man has gone before.”
“Resistance is futile!”
“Set phasers to stun.”
“Damn it, Jim!”
In addition there were some profound philosophical quotes as well that I won’t get into.
But I wanted to share the quote from Mr. Roddenberry, because it’s relevant to what I try to get across in everything I write. Books have the power to take you where you otherwise cannot go, and change your life in the process. By combining your experience with the experience of the writer, you can truly go where no man has gone before. He said:
“I consider reading the greatest bargain in the world. A shelf of books is a shelf of many lives and ideas and imaginations which the reader can enjoy whenever she wishes and as often as she wishes. Instead of experiencing just one life, the book-lover can experience hundreds or even thousands of lives. He can live any kind of adventure in the world. Books are his time machine into the past and also into the future. Books are his “transporter” by which he can beam instantly to any part of the universe and explore what he finds there. Books are an instrument by which she can become any person for a while—a man, a woman, a child, a general, a farmer, a detective, a king, a doctor, anyone.
Great books are especially valuable because a great book often contains within its covers the wisdom of a man or woman’s whole lifetime. But the true lover of books enjoys all kinds of books, even some nonsense now and then, because enjoying nonsense from others can teach us to also laugh at ourselves. A person who does not learn to laugh at his own problems and weaknesses and foolishness can never be a truly educated or a truly happy person. Also, probably the same thing could be said of a person who does not enjoy learning and growing all his life.”
Source: Letters to Star Trek