#gutter town

The Doctor is the main character of the long running Sci-Fi BBC television show: Doctor Who. He (now she) is, at least, two thousand years old and galavants about time and space saving whole worlds using nothing but his genius intellect and clever wits. Yet, even a being as brilliant and ancient as the Doctor doesn’t completely know himself.

When inflicted with a mortal wound, the Doctor’s species (the Timelords) have a biological trait called regeneration that heals them and transforms their entire body into a new form. Its a handy little writers trick that has been used to keep the show fresh and allow the actor playing the title character to exit the role without killing the series. In universe, however, it has presented some interesting challenges to the Doctor’s psychology.

The 12th Doctor was played by Scottish actor Peter Capaldi. This presented a unique situation for continuity as Capaldi had already appeared in the series twice before as two separate characters. Then show runner, Steven Moffat promised that this error would receive an explanation in the story. The resulting answer shed a light not only on the psyche of the Doctor but also on the unconscious depths of our own minds.

The Doctor comes to the realization (in episode five of series nine: The Girl who Died) that his subconscious chose his current face as a reminder that he should save people even when its against the rules. This harkens back to the Fires of Pompeii (episode two of series four) when the 10th Doctor (played by fan favourite, David Tennant) saved the family of Caecilius (played by Capaldi who later became the 12th Doctor) even though the eruption of Vesuvius was a fixed point in time.

The struggle to discover his identity is integral to the 12th Doctor’s arc, arguably more so than any other incarnation before him. The mystery behind the meaning of his reoccurring face is one the Doctor unknowingly plants for himself and it takes him a season and a half to uncover. What this demonstrates  is that even the Doctor, a seemingly immortal, infinitely clever demigod (for lack of a better term) still does not know himself and requires subliminal prompts to stay on the right path.

So what chance do you have?

If a being as powerful as the Doctor doesn’t understand his own mind then how can you? How can any of us? Our brains have evolved over several millennia and we’re only just beginning to learn how our innermost thoughts affect our behaviour. The Timelords are (fictionally) the oldest beings in the universe and even they didn’t understand themselves or their actions. The Doctor required subconscious messages from himself in order to grasp his identity and the message was to do good but most of us aren’t that lucky.

Our behaviour is influenced (maybe even controlled) by desires and impulses that reach back into the furthest depths of our consciousness and originate from times unknown. You may believe you know the reasons why you’re doing something but the truth is you haven’t the slightest idea! The Doctor may be fictional but there is a reason why we write him so complex. Its because WE are so complex!

How do we define ourselves and our self worth? We do it in relation to other things that we perceive as important. Civil institutions, peers and, of course, parents. What they say is important and that’s what we internalize as important. This is why there are people who value immoral things like racial superiority. They define themselves in relation to their parents ideals or their society's ideals (in the case of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia or Trump’s America).

I used to wonder as child why people didn’t pick up on the lessons taught by television programming. Shows like Recess and The Weekenders had morals that instructed me on how to be a better friend. Characters like TJ Detweiler and Tino Tonitini learned important lessons in the span of a twenty minute episode that made them better people. Lessons on self sacrifice, equality and the power of friendship but when I would venture out into the real world, I would find that other people hadn’t learned those lessons. They may have watched the very same shows that I did but they hadn’t learned. Why? Why was my viewing experience different from theres’?

Relativism. Those lessons weren’t important to the figures in which they related themselves. An ignorant and racist father is not going to care what lessons his child was being taught by television so why should his children? They define their self worth based on his acceptance of them.

We need to broaden our range of relation. Defining yourself based on one person or institution is going to sorely limit you and hurt you in the long run. You will never get the acceptance you so desperately seek if you look for it in one place because that one place defines itself based on something else and so forth. My father defines himself based on his relation to the legal system. The legal system defines itself based on its relation to government. Government defines itself based on its relation to... god?... the people? Who knows. This is the problem.

A self-styled country/punk three-piece from the Sonoran Desert. I’d say it veers more towards blues rock, but who cares‽ It sounds great.

Have you heard of Universal Basic Income and what do you think of it? I believe that it is going to become an inevitable necessity as industry becomes increasingly automated. Elon Musk said as much recently in an interview at the world government summit. Studies have shown that UBIs and raises in the minimum wage actually increase productivity and spending, boosting economies. The idea that these things raise price brackets or decrease worker productivity are stories invented to keep the majority of wealth in the hands of a select few. That’s what the economy has become as a whole: a story we tell ourselves. 

When someone has a skill, what is the first thing we usually ask that person: How are you going to capitalize on this? We measure success on financial gain. That’s the story that’s engraved into our society and it’s kept that way to maintain the status quo. It won’t be viable for much longer though. As technology continues to fulfill our basic needs, work is going to become harder and harder to find until we’ll have no choice but to implement a UBI if only to avoid anarchy.

Once we accept this and adopt a system of universal basic income, how will we measure success? Financial gain has always been humanity’s primary motivator because money is fundamental to survival, making greed essential to living and breeding competitiveness into our children, infusing hatred into the deepest parts of our collective unconscious, so deep we either didn’t know it was there or simply refused to acknowledge it (and the many who did recognize the truth, used that knowledge for their own personal ends). I think that this coming change can be sensed and this is why we are seeing such a drastic backlash in the form of men like Donald Trump. The last of the old guard attempting to assert themselves before humanity moves on. The fever trying to burn out the infection before the body recovers.

Eventually, wealth will not be the end all be all of life and something will take its place but what will it be? I hope that the new question asked when someone displays an innate skill or ability will not be: How will you capitalize on this but will instead become: How will this enlighten you. How will this bring you enlightenment and how can you share that enlightenment with others? This is a future that I will admit I sorely desire but I also believe it is necessary and possibly inevitable for humanity’s evolution.

What is God? To hear my uncle define it: God is inconceivable infinity. We are finite mortals and can’t conceive of the infinite. However, I believe I have something on my person that is infinite and that is: my imagination. It can and has constructed entire civilizations in my mind. Who is to say then that I am not a god? Perhaps my worlds exist in some other dimensional plane for me to do with as I please? 

Never mind that all humans are simply brains and brainstems and we probably created the idea of God ourselves because we evolved to ask the question of greater existence. Never mind the fact that humanity must have constructed the concept of God to make ourselves sleep better at night to soothe our fragile minds into thinking we are either protected, not alone or purposeful. Never mind that because my father informs me that my imagination is not infinite and is informed by my experiences. Fair enough but think of how far we have come!

Our stories, myths and legends continue to become more sophisticated. Television, movies and books show me other universes and tell me of grand places where all of time exist at once. In this manner, I have seen to the ends of existence. I have walked through the rolling valleys of possibility and I have climbed to the very peaks of space itself. I do so even as I type these words. I imagine the great epochs of society on the distant moons of our future empire.

Science fiction, fantasy and speculation have given way to eras of actualization. Star Trek depicts a utopia where monetary value has been done away with and self betterment is the new currency. We can dream of futures such as these but we have not figured that we can make them a reality. This is the paradox. Dreams and reality no longer have to be separated. I sit at my laptop with the greatest concern of my life being how will I earn enough money to support myself. This, in and of itself, is a crime.

There is no one god.

We are all gods.