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theatrical_muse today.
Prompt 234: Utopia.
Prompt 235: Show us where you live.
I find it a trifle ironic that these two questions were so close to one another.
Some would say that where I live *is* a Utopia. Certainly those that dwell in the Q Continuum are free from any material want -- we have no hunger, no poverty, no disease or injury or even old age. It'd be a lie to say we have no war, but we've only had one in a few billion years, which is better than nearly any other sentient species can boast. We can only die if our fellows kill us, and even that is very, very rare. Many, many beings would have called our existence utter perfection, a Utopia in truth.
But see, that comes from a basic misunderstanding of the word "Utopia." It's a pun, you see. "Eutopia", which would be pronounced the same way, means "good place", a place of perfection. But "utopia", spelled with just the u, means "noplace."
There is no such thing as Utopia, by definition, because it means both "perfect place" and "nowhere." Which is more insight than I'd have expected of a human, frankly, and so I'm intrigued that one of them came up with the word.
You see, we of the Continuum were created to seek power and knowledge, to strive to better ourselves, to push ourselves to become gods. And we did. And that is our problem. What can you do with your existence, when you've already achieved the purpose you were born for, and there's nothing left to do but mark time until the end of eternity?
I don't want to die -- as dull as I often find my life, it's still my life, and I still enjoy bits and pieces of it enough to make the concept of nothingness utterly unappealing. But I do need to sift through truly horrendous amounts of chaff to find the wheat that makes my bread of life, if you'll forgive me for taking a metaphor much too far. *most* of my existence nowadays is mind-numbingly dull. And this is true for many in the Continuum -- one of our number even fought for the right to kill himself because life as a Q was just too damn boring, which was how the aforementioned war got started.
And I wonder sometimes, would I be happier if I had been created as a being that can die?
Most mortals have horrendous existences, described well by the Terran philosopher Thomas Hobbes as "nasty, brutish and short." If the diseases and the injuries and the starvation don't get them, the dire poverty does. Or the expectations of their fellows press upon them and prevent them from ever being free in all their brief existence. Or they're too ignorant even to imagine freedom. I don't envy mortals who have such lives, no.
But I think about mortals such as my personal favorite, the human starship captain Jean-Luc Picard. Mortals who live in an era where they've conquered most disease, most injury, most material want. Capable of feeling hunger, but able to go satisfy it with ten ice cream sundaes any time they want to. Permitted by their society to freely do *most* of what they might want to, including explore the limitless boundaries of the parts of the universe they can actually get to in their tiny little lifespans.
Say I'd lived for two billion years and then died of old age. I would have had a happy life, and a brief period of pain at the end, and then nothingness. Would that have been better, I wonder, than a happy two billion years followed by three billion of increasing boredom and desperation, slowly watching as my reason for existing becomes harder and harder to continue to achieve? I almost have to live vicariously through mortals nowadays, because I exist to explore and to learn what's new and there ISN'T ANYTHING. Nowhere to explore, nothing new to learn. It's more fun to watch mortals learn new things and see their little eyes light up with the joy I can't feel anymore than it is to spend a thousand years in the pursuit of two minutes of the feeling that I've just done something I hadn't managed to do before.
I can't give up what I've learned or done; I can't choose to be *less* than what I am now. That violates everything I am and everything I believe in. But when you're at the top, and you can't go back down, where is left to go?
Eutopia, utopia. A place of perfection does not exist. Everyone's got their own problems, because the universe is finite. Either you die, or you reach your limits.
Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek TNG
theatrical_muse today.Prompt 234: Utopia.
Prompt 235: Show us where you live.
I find it a trifle ironic that these two questions were so close to one another.
Some would say that where I live *is* a Utopia. Certainly those that dwell in the Q Continuum are free from any material want -- we have no hunger, no poverty, no disease or injury or even old age. It'd be a lie to say we have no war, but we've only had one in a few billion years, which is better than nearly any other sentient species can boast. We can only die if our fellows kill us, and even that is very, very rare. Many, many beings would have called our existence utter perfection, a Utopia in truth.
But see, that comes from a basic misunderstanding of the word "Utopia." It's a pun, you see. "Eutopia", which would be pronounced the same way, means "good place", a place of perfection. But "utopia", spelled with just the u, means "noplace."
There is no such thing as Utopia, by definition, because it means both "perfect place" and "nowhere." Which is more insight than I'd have expected of a human, frankly, and so I'm intrigued that one of them came up with the word.
You see, we of the Continuum were created to seek power and knowledge, to strive to better ourselves, to push ourselves to become gods. And we did. And that is our problem. What can you do with your existence, when you've already achieved the purpose you were born for, and there's nothing left to do but mark time until the end of eternity?
I don't want to die -- as dull as I often find my life, it's still my life, and I still enjoy bits and pieces of it enough to make the concept of nothingness utterly unappealing. But I do need to sift through truly horrendous amounts of chaff to find the wheat that makes my bread of life, if you'll forgive me for taking a metaphor much too far. *most* of my existence nowadays is mind-numbingly dull. And this is true for many in the Continuum -- one of our number even fought for the right to kill himself because life as a Q was just too damn boring, which was how the aforementioned war got started.
And I wonder sometimes, would I be happier if I had been created as a being that can die?
Most mortals have horrendous existences, described well by the Terran philosopher Thomas Hobbes as "nasty, brutish and short." If the diseases and the injuries and the starvation don't get them, the dire poverty does. Or the expectations of their fellows press upon them and prevent them from ever being free in all their brief existence. Or they're too ignorant even to imagine freedom. I don't envy mortals who have such lives, no.
But I think about mortals such as my personal favorite, the human starship captain Jean-Luc Picard. Mortals who live in an era where they've conquered most disease, most injury, most material want. Capable of feeling hunger, but able to go satisfy it with ten ice cream sundaes any time they want to. Permitted by their society to freely do *most* of what they might want to, including explore the limitless boundaries of the parts of the universe they can actually get to in their tiny little lifespans.
Say I'd lived for two billion years and then died of old age. I would have had a happy life, and a brief period of pain at the end, and then nothingness. Would that have been better, I wonder, than a happy two billion years followed by three billion of increasing boredom and desperation, slowly watching as my reason for existing becomes harder and harder to continue to achieve? I almost have to live vicariously through mortals nowadays, because I exist to explore and to learn what's new and there ISN'T ANYTHING. Nowhere to explore, nothing new to learn. It's more fun to watch mortals learn new things and see their little eyes light up with the joy I can't feel anymore than it is to spend a thousand years in the pursuit of two minutes of the feeling that I've just done something I hadn't managed to do before.
I can't give up what I've learned or done; I can't choose to be *less* than what I am now. That violates everything I am and everything I believe in. But when you're at the top, and you can't go back down, where is left to go?
Eutopia, utopia. A place of perfection does not exist. Everyone's got their own problems, because the universe is finite. Either you die, or you reach your limits.
Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek TNG