High school, a time of great change, in personal development and social stratification, stresses all of us. However, like many of today’s problems, our solution to this madness can be found on television- found in Star Trek.

Now I understand what you are thinking- “Star Trek?! I’m no geek!” Well, yes, Star Trek is associated with technology and fantasy, but it provides immense entertainment, a humorous cast, and, above all, a foundation in philosophy. These philosophies can easily make sense of our high school experience.

Beam Me Up with Chris Youngkin will try and help make sense of our high school experience through the philosophical lens of Star Trek.

Ok, now, you may ask, what exactly is Star Trek? Well, Star Trek the original series was a hit, action packed Sci-Fi series. The storyline follows the adventures of crew members of the space shuttle USS Enterprise, led by its Captain, James T. Kirk, and his team- Bones a doctor, and an alien named Spock. If Star Trek has peaked your interested, most shows can be found on Netflix.

Let’s begin with Season 1of the original series, episode 5- “The Enemy Within”. The episode begins innocently enough as Captain Kirk beams up to his ship, the USS Enterprise, after surveying the alien life of another planet. Herein lies the problem, as a mechanism failure in the ship’s particle transporter splits Kirk’s character into two versions of himself- one timid and indecisive, the other unruly and aggressive.

With the onset of this split, we see that the stage is set for one of the best demonstrations of Bundle Theory. Originally brought to us by Scott David Hume, Bundle Theory, in short, states that man is man based upon a series of feelings in succession- a bundle. In more recognizable terms, Bundle Theory and movies are quite similar: just as Bundle Theory, movies are a series of images that, in sequence, shows a fluid picture.

The application of Bundle Theory, however, is best explained through this episode, “The Enemy Within”. See, upon splitting into two identical selves, Kirk was missing one undisputed quality- leadership. With neither one being capable of managing the ship, and the Enterprise slowly losing the fuel that it needs to sustain its orbit around the planet, it could only be the reunified Captain Kirk to effectively save the day.

Now, as we re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and make our way back to Bangor, it can be easy to forget that while there have been good laughs had here at the high school, that there can still be dark times. In these dark times, yes, we may not necessarily make the right decisions, but the most important thing is that we admit our mistake, and realize that no one individual event defines who we are, but the series of decisions that we make. With that in mind, perhaps we all deep down have leadership potential.