I admit it. I grew up on TV.

When I look back on my childhood, which didn’t seem like such a long time ago, there were plenty of times when I found myself in front of the o’ tube.

Star Trek: TOS – The Original Series

Of the many shows I watched, one was Star Trek (although they were reruns). It was that show that introduced me to science fiction, and it was appealing because it DID feature science, cool gadgets, theories and technology all in a package that was entertaining and fun. It wasn’t until years later did I realize it was also hokey and um…geared toward the male audience.

Core Philosophies

Despite it all, I can point back to that show (and later the The Next Generation) as what really helped to form and develop some of my basic core philosophies:

1. Open-mindedness – In Star Trek mythos, it’s called IDIC – Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations – I would say it was one of the show’s basic premises, even though IDIC is more prominently mentioned in novels (yes, I read some of those, too!) But the show really hit home the idea that there are lots of things out there in the world, and as humans, and even as an individual, we should be open to new possibilities.
2. Balance of Logic with Practicality and Intuition – The entertaining interplay between Captain Kirk, First Officer Spock and Dr. McCoy helped to really point out how a balance of logic, intuition and practicality usually helps to make smart and wise decisions.
3. Consequences of Our Actions – Episodes like The City on the Edge of Forever and Mirror, Mirror help set the stage for all alternate timeline storylines, which really drilled home the fact of how events can play out from certain key events, and if those key events had occurred differently, then mostly likely the subsequent events would forever be altered. This really helped me realize that we should always consider the bigger picture when we decide on a course of action.
4. We Should Seek Knowledge – I really loved the idea that if, somehow, we have all our energy needs met, then we’d be left with nothing else to do but to explore. But you know what? We don’t need to wait — we can explore each and everyday, and teach that to our kids as well. By exploring and learning, we may well one day find a way to say, fully harness the “limitless” power of our sun. Yeah, stuff of science fiction, but stranger things have happened.
5. Let Others Learn – Many episodes dealt with the Prime Directive, which to me means just because you feel you’re superior either in stature or knowledge, doesn’t mean you should dictate what everyone should do. I’ve taken that philosophy in Parenting where I often try to teach the older brother not to blurt out the answer he obviously knows, when it’s his younger brother who’s thinking things through by himself.

Looking Forward

Well, I guess that’s about it for now. I know there’s a new Star Trek movie being made — keeping fingers crossed that it’ll be good. In the meantime, though, it’s cool to reminisce and realize how much of a positive impact that show had.

On myself, AND on a part of society.

Fascinating, really.

Over the holidays, I had the pleasure of putting on a puppet show with the kids.

It was my honey’s idea was to engage the kids in something different than their everyday Bionicles or videogames. They were first resistant to the idea, and during rehearsals everyone got frustrated, but in the end everyone agreed it worked out well.

The Steps to Putting on a Home Puppet Show

First of all, it’s hard work. We had to:

• Build a puppet stage – my honey did most of it, constructing a serviceable puppet stage out of cardboard that she had saved.
• Write a script - again, here my lovely partner came up with the script. She said it was actually the hardest part, to come up with something that was easy for the kids to say or read, and that also had a good lesson for them to take away.
• Rehearse -Rehearsing got a bit frustrating at times, but the idea was to instill in the kids that everything worthwhile takes effort and practice. The more you practice, the better you get.
• Let me take over – The original idea was for the kids to do the whole show: read the script and act with the hand puppet. However, it turned out that was a lot harder for them to read and emote with their spoken voices AND try to remember they’re supposed to manipulate the puppet as well. The younger brother actually kept turning his hand toward himself, meaning that Winnie-the-Pooh always had his head turned away from the audience. In the end, I stepped in to do the puppetry. Luckily, I was raised on the Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and Mr. Rogers and so things worked out. It was a lot of fun, actually.

The Effects of a Puppet Show

Afterwards, when I reflect on what we did, it’s clear that kids can learn a lot from puppet shows because (and why Sesame Street has been around so long):

• It’s entertaining – so it’s easy to broach different ideas and not seem like you’re trying to preach. It’s no wonder shows like Sesame Street and such are popular.
• It’s memorable – in this case, because the kids were directly involved in the production, I think it will be a fondly remembered experience in years to come. We shall see. At least they love watching the video of the show.
• It teaches them timing – Well, at least they were introduced to the idea — they can still use a lot of practice, but now they have at least one beginning lesson on how to emote and act.
• It provides a sense of accomplishment – Again, because they were involved, it was obvious the experience provided a big boost to their self-esteems. They were beaming during the applause.

It was hard work, but a lot of fun, and I’m glad for the experience, both for myself and for the kids.

We’ll have to see if we’ll do more in the future.