Shatner Rules

“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” I was shouting about impending disaster, but no one was listening. And the threats to our planet were and are much more severe than any from a man wearing a rubber suit shuffling around on an airplane wing.
    Eventually, more people got on board over the years, and I try to be optimistic, but it takes more than sorting your recyclables and bringing your own bag to the grocery store. I fear we’re doomed, and that within my grandchildren’s lifetime, the conditions on our planet will be horrendous. And the main fight will be over water, not oil.
    There are even potential disasters that aren’t our doing. I’ve become acquainted with the fact that Yellowstone is rising. There’s a giant magma bubble under Yellowstone that could blow at any moment, and if that were to happen, it would affect the whole of the western part of the United States. The potential for chaos and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is only too real.
    The destruction of the planet, and the lack of seriousness that our public representatives seem to be taking toward this destruction, troubles me deeply. We are not demanding their action. It is the nature of man to avoid thinking painful thoughts. We are naturally gifted in avoiding pain, whether it’s physical or mental.
    (NOTE: Another abrupt subject change ahead. I’m allowed. This is important.)
    This brings me back to my interest in mindful meditation, the thing that helps me get through a busy, four-Shatner day. Meditating: taking a moment to relax, allowing your muscles to unwind, to free your mind, to allow the thoughts to come, to focus on your breathing. I accept my fear for the world, and accept my resolve to do something about it, to warn others.
    Mind you, all this meditation business doesn’t mean that I’m “mellow.” Not by any stretch. I still get a visceral feeling of anger when I see somebody throwing trash out the window of a car—a frequent sight here in Los Angeles.
    When I see that, I will often drive up as close as I can to the driver and glower at them. If there’s one benefit of living for eighty-plus years, it’s that you’ve had plenty of time to work on your scowl. Unfortunately, the objects of my anger soon recognize the face that is expressing disdain, and then roll down their window, ask for an autograph, and herald, “Beam me up, Scotty!” That’s when they get the one-finger salute. After I give them the autograph.
    I’ve been lucky enough to witness some of the more majestic sights nature has to offer and I want them to stay majestic. What can I say?
    The foot of Mount Everest is one such majestic sight. In addition to some spectacular vistas of nature, this place also offers a glimpse into your soul.
    I was in the Himalayas, sometime in the 1980s, staying at an ancient Buddhist temple, and I was looking for the spiritual epiphany that I’ve yearned for all my life. I’ve searched for it in my own way. Where are we going? What is life? What is the ultimate meaning of it all?
    Like many before me, I felt the answer lay thousands of feet above sea level, in the freezing cold, with barely any plant life. There is also no air at all up that high on Everest—I would wake up at night, gasping for breath. Of course, I was sleeping outside.
    That’s right, the path to enlightenment does not involve a Sleeper King Suite at the Holiday Inn. Every evening, I would wrap myself up in the sleeping bag and sit outside in the dark night, waiting for the spirits of the mountains to enter my body or enter my soul or enter my consciousness, to speak to me in some manner.
    And I’d wait day after day, night after night—and . . . nothing . . . until the wee hours of my last night in the bitter cold on the barren mountainside. I was leaving the following day, and I’d given up on making the big connection. I was sad. And shivering.
    And suddenly, I was hit with an overwhelming wave of perception, a blinding flash of realization. I had finally acquired . . . the truth. My soul was opened and I was enlightened, and the enlightenment was this: that there exists nowhere on Earth a “soulful place,” but that all, everywhere you are, is
the
soulful place. I could achieve what the Buddhist monks were trying to achieve in that valley at the confluence of Mount Everest and all those other holy mountains—wherever I was.
    This entire world is filled with mystical qualities, including my little slice of the world, with its