Mr. Spock as viewed from high school

I was sad to see that Leonard Nimoy died on Friday. I really enjoyed the character, Mr. Spock, he played on the original Star Trek series and I enjoyed his appearances in the later Star Trek movies and as a guest on the later Star Trek series. I liked how he and the writers kept the character from veering into parody or changing into some sort of super hero. But there were two things I really liked about the Spock character as I was watching the series in high school (I graduated in May, 1969 while the final Star Trek episode aired on June 9, 1969). Mr. Spock was an outsider on the series and he was the Science Officer.

As far as an outsider goes, I think everyone, to some extent, was an outsider in high school. We all tried to act like we had it all together but no one could live up to the expectations put on you by society, your parents and the school staff. That is to be expected because none of us is perfect. Even if you could possibly get 100% on every test and never missed a day of school (neither of those happened in our school), you couldn't do everything right. My big "downfall" was in the social aspects of high school. I never went to any of the big formal dances and only went on one real date the whole time (and that was because a girl that I was friends with asked me to a Sadie Hawkins Day dance). I looked up to Mr. Spock because he was an outsider, too. But in reality, he was the smartest, strongest and would out-live any of the others in the crew of the USS Enterprise. You always knew that if no one else could figure out how to get out of a bad situation, Mr. Spock could do it. And he didn't let his emotions get in the way! That was the thing I think I wanted to emulate more than anything else. Every time I noticed a girl I liked, it would never work out (usually because liking her meant I would never be able to talk with her). Every time I tried something out of my comfort zone (being in the school band and doing well academically), it didn't work out (like the time I tried out for the track team). And every failure seemed like the end of the world. Every failure hurt terribly. Why couldn't I be like Mr. Spock and just shrug off those things and just keep going?

Then there was the science. Whenever the ship and crew ran into trouble, they always went to Mr. Spock to figure it out. Science really had a use. It wasn't just something to like and to be good at. Science could be used to save lives, get you somewhere faster or help other people. Mr. Spock made science cool. And he always seemed so sure of himself! What a difference to how I felt (and probably everyone else in school). Oh to have that kind of confidence. To know what you should do and to be able to do it. He was just the guy a shy, outsider could look up to. While I did have heroes in other areas like my father, the minister in our church, even Jesus (another outsider) and various athletes and musicians, I also include a fictional character from a fictional story that somehow made my situation seem OK.