ARCHIVE: Diary of a Low Budget Superhero

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You're reading an old entry from Michelle "Lexi Kahn" DiPoala's online diary, formerly called Jungle Sweet Jungle. Blog name changed to Low Budget Superhero in October 2005. Now I mostly go by SuperLowBudge. You can call me Lexi, Michelle or SuperLowBudge, or if you're my mom, then Shelly. Enjoy these old posts (except if you're my mom.) Please follow on Blogger at superlowbudge.blogspot.com. From there you can follow me on Twitter and some other platforms. Thanks!

Everything I Need To Know I Learned From Sci Fi

(September 18, 2006)

By way of launching another one of those "damn, I had a lot of important things I was going to do tonight" nights, Joe brought home Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back. Except for catching bits of Star Wars here and there, neither of us had seen either movie in ages. I know, it's shocking, I'm a Sci Fi freakin' nerd, but that came as a young adult. I was only six when Star Wars came out and I guess I never really went back to it as an adult. Maybe if the new ones from 1999 on (I SO wanted to love Episode 1 and didn't!) had gotten my attention, I'd have re-visited the old ones sooner.

So we watched them back to back. and me and Joe had the same revelation -- that, as children, we didn't completely, totally understand what the bloody hell was going on. "You know, one of the complaints I heard about the new ones was that they are too political. I think people are forgetting how political the originals were," Joe pointed out. It's true. In my family, as much as we danced around with toy light sabres fighting each other to the death, I don't know that my cousins and I ever grasped the idea of the imperial reign of oppression or internalized "the Force" as the central entity of Jedi religion. I couldn't even have answered correctly if asked what ship we see in the very beginning of Star Wars, the one that creeps into the shot slowly until it fills the screen? The Imperial Starfighter! What a great opening scene! Moviegoers must have FLIPPED THE FUCK OUT in the 1970s.

So on many levels it was totally cool re-watching them. Now I want to watch the rest of the movies, but in chronological order. I mean by episode, not by release date. Because when watching the one that came out when I was six, I have a hard time reconciling that these events happened in storyline much later than the one that came out when I was 28. It's all ass-backwards.

The other thing I realized was how resounding some of the lines are; I didn't even remember that I got "do, or do not, there is no try" from Yoda. Really? Yoda? A thing I say in real life to myself?

That got me thinking about what other things I believe in, or at least use as sort of moral compass points, that have come from Sci Fi. I came up with a list off the top of my head, starting with "do or not do, there is no try" and making myself laugh as I ticked off more and more on my fingers. Joe just rolled his eyes.

Today I Googled to see if anyone has already written an "Everything I Know I Learned From Sci Fi" thing. Of course they have, are there any new ideas anymore? Fortunately the ones I found are totally stupid, so doing my own is worth it. For example, one quotes Tron fer chrissakes. "If you've seen one Consumer Electronics Show, you've seen them all." Come on, that's not a real life credo for anyone. How does that help guide you through your day? That's just a useless movie quote. I think the guy is full of shit; anyone can go on IMDB and find quotes. In MY list of "Everything I Know I Learned From Sci Fi" these are things I say, think about and really know without having had to Google anything. And these are just the movies, let's not even get into the books!

Here's mine:

"Acto gammet." (The Fifth Element). Leeloo says this, when Korbin kisses her while she is sleeping. She wakes up and puts his gun to his head. In the divine language it means "Never without my permission." Before taking advantage of anything I've got, my permission is required.

"Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth." (The Matrix) Yeah, it's the "there is no spoon" kid. But think about it -- take something like trying to lose fifty pounds. That's as impossible as bending a spoon with your mind. You can't look at it as "I have to lose fifty pounds." You just have to stop the bad habits and create new, good habits. This is what I'm trying to do now. It is a challenge every day. I can do this. I can't let each pound scare me. I just have to focus on getting healthy...the pounds will come off. There is no spoon.

"If someone asks you if you're a god, you say YES." (Ghostbusters) This is just the "act as if" credo, also known as "fake it 'til you make it." There is no substitute for exuding confidence, even if you're scared to death inside.

In one of the Star Trek Next Generations I have on VHS, Wesley is put in charge of a crew to analyze the planet surface. He's young so he keeps getting advised by everyone on what to do. Riker finally asks him "What would Captain Picard do?" and Wes comes up with "He'd listen to everyone's opinion and then make his own decision."

"Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." (Star Trek Next Generation) This is just a good idea, any time of day.

Never violate the Prime Directive...unless you really have to. Basically the Prime Directive is the most important set of laws created by the United Federation of Planets, you know, for how to act whilst going boldly where no one has gone before. However, many episodes of Star Trek are about how laws are one thing and human nature, right and wrong and instinct are quite another thing. Basically, you need to have the discipline to live by the rules, but not blindly. Never substitute someone else's judgment for your own. You have to have the courage of your convictions, always.

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