As this year slides indiscriminately into the next, the passage of time drains our lives more steadily and relentlessly than any other natural phenomenon. No matter what choices we make, risks we consider, or pitfalls we avoid, there is nothing we can do about our inevitable decline and insignificance. The same force that drains our lives also obliterates any trace or memory of it, just by its sheer vastness. Time stretches so far on either side of our existence that it renders our entire lifespan into the size of a single grain of sand buried under a desert of eons. What can one do to find meaning in it all? Would having more time ourselves make a difference? Would we still be human? Captain Kirk and his team were on a time crunch of their own throughout this episode, as an outbreak of the deadly Rigellian fever threatens to wipe out much of the Enterprise crew. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to a small, uninhabited planet to find the mineral ryetalyn, the only known cure for the fever.
Once on the surface, Kirk and crew encounter a strange man and a killer robot on this supposedly ‘uninhabited’ planet. He introduces himself as Flint, although he remains hostile and elusive about all other aspects of his identity. Reluctant to give the ryetalyn over to Kirk so soon, Flint invites the away team into his home where he entertains them with a lavish party. With time running out for the sick Enterprise crew, Kirk is keen to grab the mineral and go, but Flint seems to overcomplicate things. The batch of ryetalyn he gave his killer robot to process turns out to be contaminated. Still, McCoy was astounded at how fast the little bot was able to process it. If the task were up to him, McCoy didn’t know if he would have been able to discover the contamination in time. All of Flint’s technology, knowledge of disease, history, music, and art seem to be uncannily advanced. His paintings are made with contemporary materials but in the exact style of many of the greats. His lovely assistant, Rayna, is also abundantly educated but lacks much worldly wisdom.
Eventually, the truth is revealed that Flint has not only lived during the periods of all these great artists and composers, but he had also been each of them. Born in 3834 BC, he discovered that he was immortal, and then continued to live many lives on Earth over the centuries. So many lifetimes of watching friends and family die took its toll, and he secluded himself on this distant planet to hide his immortality and continue his work. His lovely assistant was an android he created to keep as a companion.
If the alternative to living a single short lifetime is one of abundant loneliness, we may hesitate to trade our lot so soon. We enjoy all the little things as they come, and treasure them even more for their impermanence. Time may also play an important role in shaping our humanity. One study of consciousness explores how time moves from an anticipation of the future, to current conscious experience, and then into past memory. Exploring how short, discrete memories relate to our longer, continuous experience of time and existence is one of the many perplexing mysteries of consciousness. Either way, the point of time is that we don’t have too much of it. Watching all his loved ones grow and die like so many flowers of past Springs, Flint was hardened to the human experience. He orchestrated a relationship between Kirk and Rayna so that the android would learn to love, and perhaps develop feelings for him. Once she learned about emotions, she agonized over the choice between Kirk and Flint, not wanting the two men to fight over her. Immortality had blunted Flint’s humanity, but a brief new experience awakened Rayna’s. The choice between Kirk and Flint was one of stability versus passion. In the end, it killed her.
Whether we live a thousand lifetimes or just one, the brief snippets of time and memory are what make us human. Flint became mortal again, and Spock removed all memories of Rayna from a heartbroken Kirk, but the real world offers few simple fixes. The agony of immortality or the joy in a single moment are all functions of time. I think we ended up with the better choice. Happy New Year!
Hopeless Trekkie 