TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE

I watched the new "Star Trek" movie on DVD last night. It wasn't a great movie, but I do like that line: "to boldly go where no one has gone before." Doesn't your life feel like that sometimes, like you're traveling in unexplored territory, without map or compass? Maybe you don't feel so bold, but there you are, boldly going, nevertheless.

Birthing a baby or raising a child feels like that. Even though you keep telling yourself, "Millions of people have done this before, so I can do it, too" there are moments when you're not sure you CAN do it. Not sure you even WANT to do it, despite the clear choices you've already made to be right where you are now.

Young Captain Kirk found himself in such a pickle last night, albeit with perhaps more immediate danger and less tedium than birthing or parenting. Still, similarities abound: you can't predict the outcome; there may be casualties; it's dang scary; the manual is useless.

At the Star Fleet Academy, young Spock designed a simulation that was presumably unsolvable. The objective of the simulation was to test how a cadet would respond to fear in the face of unavoidable death. Kirk, of course, solved the unsolvable by rewriting the game.

Sometimes all you can to win, or to simply survive, is to rewrite the game. Toss out the rules and do it your way, the way that works for you. Who's got time for fear? Just boldly go . . .

See you in space.