(no subject)
If you could have dinner with anyone in all of history, who would it be, and why?
In all of history? This is a difficult question to answer. I've sometimes wished to seek out the Orb of Time to study great leaders the way the Orb once allowed me to learn the truth about my mother and Dukat, putting me directly into the historical moment, but I've often wondered whether it's a mistake to want to study any person's life and choices that closely. Of course, dinner wouldn't be the same as being thrust directly into someone's life, but I wonder whether I would really want to sit down with a great philosopher or poet and try to clarify the words they've left behind.
My instinctive, selfish response to this question is to name someone I've already met. Bareil Antos comes to mind; I'm not sure I love him the way I once did, though if I were with him it's very likely that his physical presence would begin to affect me the way his mirror universe double's did. There's so much we never resolved, personally, politically, spiritually; his understanding of the Prophets was very different than mine, but now that I have had direct contact with the Prophets, now that the Cardassians have been all but brought to ruin and Bajor is ready to fulfill his wish that it become a member of the Federation, I would love to get his perspective on what sort of leadership is needed and how to accept the loss of the Emissary.
The other person I regularly wish I could sit down and talk to is Kai Opaka. I'd ask her the same questions, but my relationship with her was so different from the start -- she was a maternal figure of sorts for me, even more so now that I can't remember my own mother in the same idealistic light, and I never saw her private fears and weaknesses until after she was gone. I know now that she sacrificed her own son to save hundreds of Bajoran lives...that she collaborated with the Cardassians, something I might never have forgiven had I known at the time. We left her on a planet where she would live forever, but among people who planned to fight for all eternity: she thought that she was meant to remain there, to see what good she would do. I wish I dared to send a message, to let her know that peace has come at last to Bajor and to ask where we turn now. I hope that she is also struggling with the politics of peace rather than a war that never ends.
In all of history? This is a difficult question to answer. I've sometimes wished to seek out the Orb of Time to study great leaders the way the Orb once allowed me to learn the truth about my mother and Dukat, putting me directly into the historical moment, but I've often wondered whether it's a mistake to want to study any person's life and choices that closely. Of course, dinner wouldn't be the same as being thrust directly into someone's life, but I wonder whether I would really want to sit down with a great philosopher or poet and try to clarify the words they've left behind.
My instinctive, selfish response to this question is to name someone I've already met. Bareil Antos comes to mind; I'm not sure I love him the way I once did, though if I were with him it's very likely that his physical presence would begin to affect me the way his mirror universe double's did. There's so much we never resolved, personally, politically, spiritually; his understanding of the Prophets was very different than mine, but now that I have had direct contact with the Prophets, now that the Cardassians have been all but brought to ruin and Bajor is ready to fulfill his wish that it become a member of the Federation, I would love to get his perspective on what sort of leadership is needed and how to accept the loss of the Emissary.
The other person I regularly wish I could sit down and talk to is Kai Opaka. I'd ask her the same questions, but my relationship with her was so different from the start -- she was a maternal figure of sorts for me, even more so now that I can't remember my own mother in the same idealistic light, and I never saw her private fears and weaknesses until after she was gone. I know now that she sacrificed her own son to save hundreds of Bajoran lives...that she collaborated with the Cardassians, something I might never have forgiven had I known at the time. We left her on a planet where she would live forever, but among people who planned to fight for all eternity: she thought that she was meant to remain there, to see what good she would do. I wish I dared to send a message, to let her know that peace has come at last to Bajor and to ask where we turn now. I hope that she is also struggling with the politics of peace rather than a war that never ends.