Parallels (Thoughts while high and watching DS9)

I needed to relax last night, like really relax. So, I filled the tub with lukewarm water (we’re in a heatwave), and my favorite scented bubble bath (Dr. Teal’s Milk and Honey foaming bath), set the laptop on the bench beside the tub, and took a nice, deep inhale of some weed.

Getting high and watching Deep Space 9 is my favorite form of relaxing these days.

Now it’s the next morning and I can only half explain some of the revelations I had during the episodes I watched last night. The murkiness of “right” and “wrong” and “good” and “evil.” The way people’s ideologies and narcissism make them pawns in someone else’s grab for power. How greed can warp one’s interpretation of morality and spirituality in such a way that they can’t even see that their own righteousness is why they’re so flawed.

And, at some point, I understood that conflict does more than drive the plot forward. Conflict…specifically….war, is a catalyst for bravery and unification, but empathy and compassion are the catalysts for peace.

For whatever reason, having that sense that I’ve unlocked the code to the universe relaxes me. It makes me feel like my problems and stresses are all very, very small and temporary. It gives me the empathy and the compassion I regularly lack for certain groups of people. It helps me understand why people turn to religion, and why power corrupts, and why we should pity the narcissists. They’re a cog in a wheel, but think they’re a driver.

But that the real drivers are those (usually not those in great positions of power) who, with an act of pure bravery born from a strong sense of compassion and empathy, can tip the balance of power and keep the cycle moving forward.

Oh, and, apparently – toxic masculinity has not been solved by the 24th century, and Cassidy Yates Sisko still has to stand up for her right to define her own meaning and purpose life and not be expected to absorb the responsibilities and beliefs of her husband, the Emissary.

But hey, at least Ferengi women can now legally wear clothes.