INTERMISSION: WHICH STAR TREK CHARACTER ARE YOU?

So, I had a few minutes in between movies and thought I would take the “which Star Trek character are you” quiz? Can’t say I was expecting this as the answer, though.

Your results:
You are Will Riker

Will Riker 80% James T. Kirk (Captain) 60% Geordi LaForge 60% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 60% Data 59% Jean-Luc Picard 55% Spock 49% Deanna Troi 45% Worf 40% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 35% Mr. Scott 35% Beverly Crusher 35% Chekov 30% Mr. Sulu 30% Uhura 25%

At times you are self-centered but you have many friends. You love many women, but the right woman could get you to settle down.

Click here to take the "Which Star Trek character are you?" quiz...

Self centered? Okay, fine, I can accept that. Many friends? Um, does that mean Facebook friends, or actual face-to-face folks? I’m kind of a hermit, so there’s a big gap between the two. Love many women? Um, maybe three decades ago, but I’ve been married to the same woman for almost 25 years now. Guess that means I found the right one. And just look at that photo. I don’t even have a beard, for crying out loud! Either the accuracy of this quiz is in doubt, or… maybe I don’t know myself quite as well as I thought?

Commander Will Riker once asked, “How the hell do we defeat an enemy that knows us better than we know ourselves?” Not a bad question. Sounds like it would be a good idea to follow Socrates’s advice when he proclaimed, “Man, know thyself.” According to the old 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia article on Socrates, he believed self-knowledge to be the starting point to all knowledge, because “the greatest source of the prevalent confusion was the failure to realize how little we know about anything, in the true sense of the word know. The statesman, the orator, the poet, think they know much about courage; for they talk about it as being noble, and praiseworthy, and beautiful, etc. But they are really ignorant of it until they know what it is, in other words, until they know its definition. The definite meaning, therefore, to be attached to the maxim ‘know thyself’ is ‘realize the extent of thine own ignorance’.”

Oh, well, that’s okay then. I can certainly recognize my own ignorance. After all, I display it often enough on this blog to know it when I see it. It’s a good thing too because, as the Catechism explains, “Whoever wants to remain faithful to his baptismal promises and resist temptations will want to adopt the means for doing so.” And among those means the Catechism lists are practice of an ascesis adapted to the situations that confront him, obedience to God's commandments, exercise of the moral virtues, fidelity to prayer, and yes, you guessed it, self-knowledge.

So, basically, it’s easier to resist temptation if we have a firm grasp on just how dumb we can be sometimes. Fate may protect fools, little children, and ships named Enterprise, but a little self knowledge can protect your soul.