I don’t typically get all broken up about celebrities dying. Though they may touch our lives with their work, we don’t know them and having an emotional attachment to them has always struck me as a little silly. Thus celebrity deaths are more or less a way to mark the time.
How very logical of me.
But, here I am holding back tears as I write this, because Leonard Nimoy died today, at 83. He was many things: an actor, a director and photographer, an author, a philosopher. But to me, and to so many around the world and across the decades, he was Spock. Spock, who in so many ways defines the best of what Star Trek is and what it aspires to be.
Half Vulcan and half Human, Spock’s journey mirrors our own. What does it mean to be Human? How do we reconcile the intensity of our emotions with the need to deal with our world and those around us rationally? When should we listen to our heart and when should our head take the lead? What does it mean to be a friend? The very best of Star Trek investigates these basically human, existential questions. A journey into the unknown of space is simply the occasion to ask the questions.
Outside of his life as Spock, Leonard Nimoy took these questions to heart and lived them out in his life and work. These adventures will be well detailed across the Internet today, so I won’t go into them here.
I only want to say this: as Leonard Nimoy now travels the final frontier, may we all live long and prosper.
(Editor’s note: this article was written by Logan Robertson at the Disembodied Beard)