When I was a kid, I watched Star Trek a lot. It wasn't as much as my best friend, whose dad was obsessed with it and recorded every episode on the VHS. It also was definitely more than any of my other classmates.

My favorite series was Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG).

My favorite character was Data.

Data was so interesting to me. He had no emotion. He was the definition of the ultimate logic machine. He input information and then reacted, never worried about how his own emotions would affect the results. And yet, he chose kindness over and over again.

The logical choice was kindness.

I've always felt a bit like a fish out of water. Realizing as an adult that I am in fact Neurodivergent helped a lot. There is, in fact, a reason I struggled to feel like I belonged, even when I was surrounded by people. No one saw me either because they didn't want to or because I had broken myself to fit in and it disguised who I really was. I spent most of my life feeling like I didn't belong anywhere and that no matter how hard I tried, no one could see me for who I was.

So seeing Data, a being who doesn't fit in, who is a bit too literal and cannot be fully understood by those around him, choose kindness because it was the logical choice inspired me into who I am today. I chose kindness because kindness made sense. I input data and output results.

One of the reasons that Data chose kindness was because he saw it in those around him. When Ryker was kind to whatever dignitary was speaking with him, it had better results on the mission. When Jean Luc-Picard was kind to Wesley, Wesley was inspired and then did amazing things. Every time a character in Star Trek chooses kindness, they were rewarded. When they are unkind, they end up paying for it somehow. And Data saw this happen over and over again and filed it aways "logic says kindness is the answer."

I followed Data's footsteps. Each thing I was presented with was filed away in my brain. I used this information to frame how I operated in the world. Input in, output results. All of this was very much framed in the reality I lived in: Utah Mormonism of the 90s and early 2000s. My community impacted the results as I saw what worked for them and what didn't. Mostly, at least in the early days, I stored what worked.

One example: my mother's kindness.

Despite my mother abusing us kids, she was kind to strangers. I saw graciousness offered to even people I knew my mother hated. If someone was in need and she could, she helped.

I saw my mother helping a lot. Almost every good memory I have of my mom involves her being kind. When she died, people from every neighborhood I can remember living in and many who had known her before my birth, told me how kind my mother was. I have always agreed. My mother was kind to them.

The result of this kindness came in many ways. All of them blessed my life. The actions of my mother spreading kindness positively impacted me. I didn't understand confirmation bias or statistics. I just knew that kindness made things better. So I was kind.

Kindness was the logical choice.

I feel like it's really important to state that kindness isn't truly kindness unless it includes kindness to yourself.

Often in my childhood, we did life on hard-mode because my mother could not give herself grace and kindness. She could not offer herself the same kindness she gave strangers. (She also did not usually offer her children the same grace and kindness she gave strangers either.) With the help of therapy, I could see the patterns and I have tried hard to learn from my mother's mistakes. I'm not perfect, but I am kind. That includes being kind to me.

Tommy's top surgery recovery really highlighted to me why this matters. As his caregiver I saw first hand, the kinder he was to himself, giving himself room to relax and let me take care of him, the easier it made my job. When he pushed through even though he wasn't feeling well, it ended up making things harder.

(Both of those responses are so human! I saw the pattern over and over again in the years I was a massage therapist. People would push through things they really shouldn't and it would slow down their healing. And when they actually listened to themselves and their bodies, they typically recovered faster.)

But being on the other end, where I was helping take care of someone else, the easier it was for me to see that when kindness flows both ways, it's actually better for everyone. Another data point to input in my brain.

The biggest difference between me and Data is that I do have emotions. These emotions are very impactful on how I live and what I do with my life. For me, they enhance the data-input portion of the program. The more I feel, the more information I can learn. And I have learned that empathy enhances my moral framework of kindness being the logical choice.

I choose to be kind because I believe it's the right thing to do.

I also choose to be kind because I care about people.

And kindness cannot be kindness without being kind to myself.

Kindness is the logical choice.

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