Lecture: Charlie X Syndrome
INT. OFFICE
KIRK: Are you responsible for what happened to the Antares, Charlie?
CHARLIE: Why?
KIRK: Answer me.
CHARLIE: Yes. There was a warped baffle-plate on the shield of their energy pile. I made it go away. It would’ve blown up anyway. Well they weren’t nice to me! They wanted to get rid of me. They don’t now.
CSH: Yes, Charlie, because you scared them away.
CHARLIE: I didn’t mean to! It was their fault. They misunderstood me. They just made things up and never got to know me!
CSH: That fact—their not seeking you out for knowing—what do you think caused that?
CHARLIE: I don’t know.
CSH: I know you don’t know, Charlie. I know you don’t know.
If there were ever a law of human nature that would count as a curse, it is Charlie X Syndrome.
The lone human is incomplete. The human is wired to connect, to express it species/social being, to be a part. But in our physicality and genetic selfishness, we are alone and self-serving. Our meaning maker is ultimately untethered from our comrades. If the meaning maker makes self-loathing, then the social organism will disapprove since the self will fail to express value.
The result is an angry outcast who brings preemptive hatred to others and exile to himself. And this is a particularly human curse.