OCTOBER 12, 2022 - They say that “experience is the best teacher”, however, I would counter that with “the shortcut to maturity is by learning from the experiences of others.” As we grow, our view of the world changes and shapes and reshapes how we view things.  If you’ve read any of William Shatner’s memoirs, you’ve seen just this over the decades. 

His newest book Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder, co-authored by Josh Brandon, was published by Atria Books on Oct. 4, and it offers even more insight into his view of the world, (and in this case, quite literally) and what he’s learned. 

A few selections from the book: 

I looked down and I could see the hole that our spaceship had punched in the thin, blue-tinged layer of oxygen around Earth. It was as if there was a wake trailing behind where we had just been, and just as soon as I’d noticed it, it disappeared.

I continued my self-guided tour and turned my head to face the other direction, to stare into space. I love the mystery of the universe. I love all the questions that have come to us over thousands of years of exploration and hypotheses. Stars exploding years ago, their light traveling to us years later; black holes absorbing energy; satellites showing us entire galaxies in areas thought to be devoid of matter entirely… all of that has thrilled me for years… but when I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold . . . all I saw was death.

I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home. I could see the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I was leaving her.

Everything I had thought was wrong. Everything I had expected to see was wrong.

…I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.

He went on to say that it was the strongest feeling of grief that he’d ever encountered.  How man’s interference has damaged the planet we live on to the point that it could all be lost.  

Another profound snippet from his new view of our world is:

It can change the way we look at the planet but also other things like countries, ethnicities, religions; it can prompt an instant reevaluation of our shared harmony and a shift in focus to all the wonderful things we have in common instead of what makes us different. It reinforced tenfold my own view on the power of our beautiful, mysterious collective human entanglement, and eventually, it returned a feeling of hope to my heart. In this insignificance we share, we have one gift that other species perhaps do not: we are aware—not only of our insignificance, but the grandeur around us that makes us insignificant. That allows us perhaps a chance to rededicate ourselves to our planet, to each other, to life and love all around us. If we seize that chance.

If we haven’t already, we can order the book on Amazon and you can read more about it on Variety’s website. And perhaps, just perhaps, after reading it, may have taken at least one more shortcut toward maturity. Watch for DSTN’s full review of Boldly Go next week.