![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Rest well, friend.
Feb. 27th, 2015 13:03Leonard Nimoy is gone.
I'm sad, but not shattered. He had a very full and satisfying life, and his death wasn't unexpected. I'm actually most affected by the fans' grief; I know this is quite a blow to many people.
Not to me, though. Leonard Nimoy, and to a much greater degree Spock, was a tremendous role model for me over the years. I'm glad I wrote fan mail to him saying so, though I don't think he ever laid eyes on it personally. I found him inspiring and comforting, particularly as the character matured over the years into someone with great wisdom, compassion, and serenity. Spock would never have been who he was without Nimoy, and Nimoy himself came to admit that Spock shaped him a great deal.
In some ways, I feel like many of the lessons I took from Spock are ones that I have only just managed to grasp in the last month. Be true to yourself, no matter what everyone else thinks. Control comes through acceptance, not repression. Find peace within yourself by embracing all your parts without judgment. Analysis only takes us so far, and emotion must take us the rest of the way.
Before that, however, I had already ascribed to the philosophy that rationality and logic do not exclude compassion, they lead to it. I had seen the inner calm that the older Spock found in the years since ST:TOS, and decided that I wanted to get there. Only now do I really feel like I have found some of that, and curiously enough, it's that peace that has allowed me to accept Nimoy's death without more than a little heaviness. After all, he wouldn't want the world to stop for his passing; he'd want us to live well and work toward our own bright futures.
Thank you for everything, Mr. Nimoy. The world became, and remains, a brighter place for your having been in it.
I'm sad, but not shattered. He had a very full and satisfying life, and his death wasn't unexpected. I'm actually most affected by the fans' grief; I know this is quite a blow to many people.
Not to me, though. Leonard Nimoy, and to a much greater degree Spock, was a tremendous role model for me over the years. I'm glad I wrote fan mail to him saying so, though I don't think he ever laid eyes on it personally. I found him inspiring and comforting, particularly as the character matured over the years into someone with great wisdom, compassion, and serenity. Spock would never have been who he was without Nimoy, and Nimoy himself came to admit that Spock shaped him a great deal.
In some ways, I feel like many of the lessons I took from Spock are ones that I have only just managed to grasp in the last month. Be true to yourself, no matter what everyone else thinks. Control comes through acceptance, not repression. Find peace within yourself by embracing all your parts without judgment. Analysis only takes us so far, and emotion must take us the rest of the way.
Before that, however, I had already ascribed to the philosophy that rationality and logic do not exclude compassion, they lead to it. I had seen the inner calm that the older Spock found in the years since ST:TOS, and decided that I wanted to get there. Only now do I really feel like I have found some of that, and curiously enough, it's that peace that has allowed me to accept Nimoy's death without more than a little heaviness. After all, he wouldn't want the world to stop for his passing; he'd want us to live well and work toward our own bright futures.
Thank you for everything, Mr. Nimoy. The world became, and remains, a brighter place for your having been in it.
