Tuesday, February 19, 2013

THE PRIME DIRECTIVE


Streetpuppy is a Trekkie.

And remembers well the number one and most prominent guiding principle of the United Federation of Planets which dictates that no Starfleet officer can interfere with the internal development of alien civilizations, especially if they have not devoped WARP technology which means they are incapable of interstellar flight, which in turn means they are unaware of other civilizations and planets...including planet Homeless.

Basically, in a nutshell or  -space capsule - that would mean that even in the event that the captain of the Enterprise had detected  an asteroid heading for a planet he is approaching,  he would need to assume that the people - or plants or sea life or vegetable life or whatever is down there - and most likely it would not be humanoid, let's get real - hasn't learned to hurtle a space ship through the heavens at many times the speed of light, thus would have no idea what an asteroid is and so will be burned to a crispy critter on impact and life would have to start all over again on that planet.

Here, on Planet Homeless,  many Streetpuppy inhabitants face a similar and vexing situation.

They can't see the asteroid coming, and yes, it's aimed right at them, but the people who are in charge of  taking care of them cannot tell  the Streetpuppy Planet Homeless inhabitants about it, because, they must assume that the Planet Homeless inhabitants  are not advanced enough to understand  -besides the technical implications of an asteroid  bearing down on them -  that nothing is inherently good or bad and can only be judged from inside, and that if  the Streetpuppies  don't get it, that the asteroid is coming, the people  in charge must only infer that most Streetpuppies are intellectually and morally lazy, and most likely incapable of mastering a skateboard let alone a WARP driven interstellar starship.

And many of the people in charge have a point.

The asteroids are all around Planet Homeless.  Bobbing and weaving and dancing through the fetid air, and every once in a while one of them breaks loose and SPLAT!

There goes another Streetpuppy, down for the count before he or she could master the theory of flight and get the hell out of Dodge...or off Planet Homeless.

Be the asteroid alcohol, crack, meth, heroin, spice, bath salts or Oxycodone or a real bad choice  lifestyle or companions

The Streetpuppy has fallen victim to one of those asteroids  and then through the cracks - or worse, into a wooden box - and won't make it off Homeless Planet.

Let's get back to that 'people in charge' thing.

So many of them, be they police,  counselors, addiction 'experts' or all of those coalitions, associations and groups who band together to raise money to support their office furniture and long lunch and company car  habits have just plain given up, and understand  that other part of the Prime Directive which says that indeed nothing is inherently good or bad and can only be chainged i.e. 'fixed' from the inside. 

Kind of a Zen thing.

Like, 'it is what it is.'

Or, if it's broke, don't fix it.'

Or as Captains Kirk, or Picard would say as they turn the Enterprise homeward  Earth from Planet Homeless "First star to the right and straight on 'til morning, Ensign."

"Engage!"















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