Spock

Without being really into it, I enjoy "Star Trek". It is enough of a part of our culture that you can recognize the references without being a big fan. So, when one of my friends in grade school started saying I was Spock, I knew the reference, but I have thought different things at different times about what it meant.

Jonathan's complaint was that I was too logical, and he was specific about that. I heard it as "no fun", which he probably was not saying because we played together a lot. I must have been at least kind of fun.

I also don't remember for sure when he called me Spock. It happened more than once, but it was probably concentrated into one time period. When we were playing together a lot was during Graveyard Airlines times, which was after Jennie came and I had my first best friend. That may have loosened me up more that I realize.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-first-superhero-identity.html

(Spock would have found the Graveyard Airlines game highly irrational.)

I don't want to give the impression that Jonathan devastated me, but it was something that I remembered, and it's something that I return to periodically because how I feel about it has related to my values at a given time.

Spock's logic kind of has two different opposites. One counter to logic is intuition - going with your gut instead of reasoning through everything. The other is emotion, where you are led by your heart. Spock was all brain.

I have at various times romanticized both intuition and emotion over logic; who wants to be all stuffy and thinking about everything? I am nonetheless sure that the Spock thing must have come from me explaining - possibly quite pedantically - why something was a bad idea and wouldn't work. I do remember that when it was first said, and rankling in my soul, that I eventually decided that I was just practical. I can be very practical.

I still am practical, but I am also idealistic. I think things through, and then I do what feels right. This may only mean that I know exactly why I shouldn't do something, but a lot of it works out.

I may be thinking of it more, because in the last "Big Bang Theory" Sheldon had to come to a realization that choosing pure logic over emotion wasn't working for him.

I do see the allure. There are things that really hurt me that I can logically see are wrong, and unfair, and so I should be able to shake them off, but I can't. That can suck a lot.

In the end, I have a good brain, but also a good heart and pretty good instincts, and I use all of them together, mostly appropriately.

That feels very human.