What Would Picard Do?

When I was a young kid, my first memory of watching Star Trek was seeing it on a black-and-white TV set. I remember that my dad was still living with us, so I was five years old or younger.

The episode was "Where No Man Has Gone Before," where Captain Kirk's friend and the ship's helmsman, Gary Mitchell, displays telepathic and telekinetic power after the Enterprise tries to cross an energy barrier is struck with a powerful force. I remember this episode because I was struck by Mitchell's glowing eyes.

(At the time, my mom said that the film editors scratched out the eyes on the reel to make the eyes appear to be glowing but I now know that the effects team did more than that.)

I became hooked with the television series and imagined some day, I would be travelling in space. I wanted to be a member of the crew, someday becoming the ship's captain.

While I admired the cast of Star Trek, I never wanted to be Captain Kirk, or Spock, or Bones McCoy. When I had toys from the show, and models of the starship, I pretended that I was the one who gave the orders on the ship. I was the captain.

Captain Gregory Ross Brown of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

As I grew older, I sometimes tried to behave in a way that would befit a Starfleet captain, though most times, I failed miserably. I was a dumb teenage kid, after all, with raging hormones. I also imagined that I had transferred from the Enterprise and had a ship of my own—the U.S.S. Lamont, named initially after the 1984 Ultravox album, Lament, but later changed to the 19th-century Scottish-German astronomer and physicist, (John) Johann von Lamont.

I barely saw the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I worked full-time for Black's Cameras and always had the Saturday evening shift. My manager, Cesar, and assistant manager, Steve, were huge Star Trek fans and arranged it so that they could finish work in time to get home and watch the episodes.

I would hear about what I missed on Monday mornings. It sucked.

I was looking forward to seeing episodes, on the rare Saturday evenings I had off. I already knew Patrick Stewart from the 1981 movie, Excalibur, where he played the father of Guenevere, King Leodegrance. Though this role was brief, it was memorable.

When I became the assistant manager of the St. Laurent Black's store, I was in charge of making the staff schedule, so I made sure that I was available to watch ST:TNG, and I found the series to be immensely better than the original series. Captain Jean-Luc Picard was a powerful leader of the Enterprise.

Patrick Stewart made Picard someone that I looked up to, someone who's moral fibre was something I wanted to personify. Not as an imaginary character in my own fantasy Star Trek world, but as a maturing adult.

When faced with a dilemma, I would sometimes ask myself, "What would Jean-Luc Picard do in this situation?"

I wouldn't necessarily come up with an answer but the question would allow me to put my emotions in check, to slow down, and think.

Last week was tough for fans of Star Trek: not only did we lose Walter Koenig, who famously played Pavel Chekov in the original series, but we also lost someone who redefined Star Trek, who seemingly made the franchise more real.

TOS was a televised play: TNG taught us about ourselves.

Patrick Stewart was more than a great actor. He was a decent human being. He was a staunch supporter of Amnesty International and Refuge, a women's protection agency. Having witnessed the violence against his mother, at the hands of his father, he made it a mission to speak out against abuse.

Later, when he learned of the horrors that his father had witnessed in World War II and that his father was experiencing profound Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Sir Patrick became an advocate for those who suffered from PTSD, giving equal support and bringing just as much awareness to causes in the name of his mother and father.

Just like so many people around the world, I reeled at the news of Patrick Stewart's death. I wept. I was at a loss of words. I felt that I lost someone close to me, and in a way, Sir Patrick was close to my heart.

I still look at life, sometimes, as if I'm a member of Starfleet. Whether I succeed or not, I try to keep a cool head in times of stress or conflict.

And I ask myself, when faced with a challenge, "What would Jean-Luc Picard do?"