The Autobiography of Mr. Spock Read online

  But the story of how my father wooed my mother was not one told in our home. Later, when I visited on Earth and came to know my human family better, I learned the rough outline of events from my grandmother and my uncle. Amanda, during adolescence, became deeply absorbed in the history and philosophy of Vulcan, in particular the meditation practices which form such an everyday part of life on my homeworld. In part, this was a natural outgrowth from her maternal grandmother’s groundbreaking studies in xenology (my great-grandmother held a variety of chairs in her field at several prestigious institutions); in part, this was her own initiative. Something about the long history of that world fascinated her. Perhaps it was the contradictions: the bloody history; the stable present. Perhaps it was simply her romantic streak. Many adolescents become enamored with fantastical worlds, inhabiting them deeply and profoundly. It was simply that in my mother’s case, the fantastical world existed. My grandparents believed that the phase would pass, and that my mother was set upon becoming a teacher or educator, perhaps an educational psychologist, like her own mother. And so it seemed to be. Amanda loved teaching children and young people to explore their own capacity to learn, helping them discover the methods which were most successful for them to be able to develop not only their knowledge, but also their curiosity, and their capacity to frame questions, and their ability to then find appropriate means to answer them. These were the subjects she pursued at university.

  As Amanda’s studies progressed toward doctoral level, her interests broadened into the training of the mind to its fullest potential. She began to study various meditative techniques, and here her interest in Vulcan practices was re-awakened. Before she ever set foot on Vulcan, she embarked upon some aspects of kohlinar. This word describes two closely related activities: the ritual by which it is shown that emotions have been fully purged, and also the series of mental disciplines undertaken to achieve this state. Not all Vulcans ever achieve this, and many human psychologists view the process with concern. My mother was rare in showing both interest and ability. She also became an expert on the concept of “flow”, that elusive state of mind that humans enter when they become most naturally and spontaneously creative, and which is so alien to the Vulcan approach of rigorous application of tried and tested methods. I believe that it is important to understand that she was not simply a convert. Toward the end of her postgraduate work, she was invited to attend a retreat on Vulcan devoted to the practice of t’san s’at, a relatively new discipline which seemed, as a result of its less stringent techniques, to have many potential benefits for non-Vulcans. Naturally, she went to this retreat—and here the information which my human relatives were able to supply becomes spotty. Amanda left for Vulcan, for, as far as they were aware, three months. Towards the end of her third month, she contacted my grandmother and grandfather to tell them that she was engaged to be married and would not be returning to Earth.

  My grandmother, at this point in the story, would fall silent. My grandfather, if pressed, would say, “It was almost as if she were enamored…” An interesting word to apply to my father. I would not call him a charming man. He had gravitas, yes, and a quality that was not charisma, but which meant that one wished for his good opinion. It would be too easy, I think, to say that Amanda was somehow enchanted by Vulcan; that during that visit her adolescent imaginings were rekindled, and, coming under that world’s spell, she chose to remain there, to the end of her life. This is what her immediate family thought was the case, and I know, too, how saddened they were by her sudden and complete removal to Vulcan. My grandmother, right up to her death, believed that my mother’s chosen path had not brought her happiness. To their credit, my grandparents did not pass on to me their continuing bewilderment at her decision to marry my father. They did not like her choice, but they accepted it was hers to make.

  But I knew what they thought, of course, and indeed at many times I have shared their puzzlement. Throughout my life, I often wondered what drew my mother—a woman not only of intelligence but also of passion, with an almost boundless capacity for love—to come to this world. Surely Vulcan—as an old friend of mine used to say—was cold-blooded and austere. Loveless. What, I would wonder, might possibly have drawn her to this world, and to my father, perhaps the most ascetic man that I have ever met? These questions must remain, to a large extent, unanswered, since both parties are now long dead. My mother, for all her practice of many Vulcan techniques, did not write a t’san a’lat, and, although I know that she kept a journal from her youth, and indeed I saw her writing on many occasions, I have never found it. Whether she destroyed it before her death, or my father destroyed it afterwards, I do not know. Perhaps it was only ever intended as a tool for her, a means to help her clarify emotions and bring peace of mind. But I might wish that some document existed, if only to clarify some of the choices she made, which are sometimes still opaque to me. Whatever private feelings my mother held about her decisions, her married life, and her children remain exactly that—private. All that I can know is what I observed—that their marriage lasted, from which I can logically extrapolate that she loved my father. I can say too, without any doubt in my mind, that she in turn was the deep and enduring love of his life.

  And I for one cannot, of course, regret this choice she made. As I write these words, my mind’s eye calls up to me again most clearly the pendant that my mother wore, the symbol at the heart of Vulcan philosophy. I might wish that I had understood its full meaning much earlier in my life: that one should not trap oneself forever in a struggle between two imagined halves. The universe is a vast and wild place, and in this chaotic variety lies not disintegration, but the means to realize a fuller, more sustained unity of self. In embracing what is different in others, we become more fully ourselves. Perhaps that was at the heart of the choice that my mother made when, a woman of twenty-four, she left her home and her family for good, to marry a man much older than herself, and stay on a world that would always, to some extent, see her as an outsider.

  * * *

  If my mother was the constant of my early years, then my father, Sarek, was a more distant figure, but I felt the weight of his formidable presence and achievements early on. The house in which we lived was a monument to our forebears; as I grow older, I reflect upon how heavily this family history must have weighed in turn upon my father. At the time, of course, he seemed little different to me from those graven images of Skon and Solkar that seemed to look down from every corner of the house. This long line of ambassadors, entrusted to represent our world at the very highest levels, formed alliances and forged treaties, and, at the same time, were men of culture and learning, and the arts. My great-grandfather, Solkar, the first Vulcan ambassador to Earth, was also one of the finest musicians of his generation. My grandfather, Skon, with decades of service on the Federation council, translated not only Surak’s work into English, but thousands of lines of poetry from the sonorous, even languid, pastorals of T’Palaath to the vigorous epics of Serat to the crisp, cool verses of Saum. And my own father, venerated ambassador in his own right, who meditated twice daily, was one of the best players of kal-toh whom I have ever met. Such were my forefathers, and this history, this pedigree, I memorized at a very early age. The names of the dead were in many ways more real to me than my living human family back on Earth, to whom I spoke only from a distance. The faces of my Vulcan ancestors were always there—even if they did not speak or offer guidance.

  I was aware early on that I was expected to follow in the family tradition and, in turn, become an ambassador at the very least. I was, after all, my father’s son, with all that implied. I was aware, too, perhaps earlier than my parents realized, that the expectations that I would perform well were heightened because the previous son had proven so disappointing. My elder half-brother, Sybok, was not a constant presence in my early years, but his name, if mentioned, would cast a pall over our home. Whenever we received news of him, my father’s lips would invariably narrow; his expression grow
stonier. I would see his eye fall upon me—the second chance, yes, but a risky one, given his human side—and I would feel a little more weight fall upon my shoulders.

  I was naturally eager to prove myself a worthy inheritor of this great family tradition. This was not, I told myself, a matter of pride or some other emotional impulse, but an entirely rational wish to make the best of the privileges of my upbringing. Twice a week, my father would take time out of his schedule to tutor me. His aim was to instill in me what he believed were the fundamentals: the principles of logic; a rational and scientific mindset; how to set one’s mind in order to be able to work with discipline and care. First, we would meditate for a while, and then turn to the business of the day. Simple logic games, that taught cause and effect, and deductive skills, and how to show proof. Scales upon the ka’athyra, (an instrument that you might understand as lying somewhere between a lyre or a lute), building steadily to more complex arrangements. How to systematically order and arrange data.

  These sessions with my father were a source of both vast inspiration and deep confusion. As long as I could rely upon my memory, I faced few difficulties. If he read out a simple aphorism from T’Lor’s Meditations, for example, I would only need to hear it once or twice to repeat it back. Music, again, I could quickly play by ear. But, in other respects, it was clear that I was struggling. Simply put—I could not read. Most children on Vulcan are reading fluently in their own dialect by their third year, and in a second and third dialect by their fifth. But this was a code that I could not crack. The shapes on the page seem to shift and move. What was up became down; what was left became right. I could not make sense of these strange and ever-changing symbols. The presence of my father, so close to hand and without expression, surely did not help. He would listen for a while, then take the book and close it. Nothing more would be said. We would play kal-toh together for a while, an ancient game of strategy, using small rods, or t’an, to create complex spheres of other three-dimensional shapes. One might play alone, in the manner of the human game of solitaire, or against an opponent, each player selecting a different shape and attempting to maneuver the construction in that direction. Or one might play the way that my father and I preferred, working together toward a common goal. Slowly, we would create order from the chaos that lay before us, constructing the most beautiful and orderly shapes. Kal-toh has always had a calming effect, on both me and my father. These quiet games together, where we communicated not by speech, but by the simple pleasure of a shared desire for order, simplicity, and beauty, are amongst my finest memories of my father. Sometimes, having solved a particularly difficult set-up, my emotions—my pride—would get the better of me.

  “Control your responses, Spock,” my father would say. “The solution is its own reward.” And I did learn to do this, taking pleasure instead from the simple fact of being with my father, and the knowledge of an activity shared.

  But none of this could hide the fact that I was not a success. By this point—I must have been four or five years old—it was becoming clear to everyone that something was not quite right about this halting child. And, never spoken but always somehow in the background, the suggestion that my trouble arose from the unfortunate fact of my half-humanity, a condition that I could not escape, and which would surely prevent my ever reaching the heights achieved by those omnipresent forefathers. Solkar, Skon, Sarek… Dimly, I was starting to grasp that some of the people around me believed there would be no fourth name placed in line there, no successor as illustrious as those who had come before. How could the second son, the half-human child, be expected to succeed where the first son, the full-blooded Vulcan, had failed? It was plain to everyone that I was starting with too great a disadvantage. Everyone, with one notable exception. My mother. Whatever doubts other may have had, Amanda never doubted for a second that there was a key to understanding me, and that with time and patience and thought, she could unlock what lay within me. Such certainty means the world to a child. My mother’s unshakeable belief in me meant that, even in the future, when my sense of self came, on occasion, close to crumbling, there was a bedrock there that could not be destroyed.

  * * *

  One might believe from this that, despite my ancestry, the influences upon my early life were almost entirely Vulcan. But ShiKahr, the city of my birth, has long had the reputation of being one of the most diverse places in the quadrant. The capital of a great civilization, the home of many ambassadors and envoys, the chosen destination of many travelers and visitors—ShiKahr embodies the most deeply held principle of Vulcan philosophy: that our strength lies in diversity, in our ability to live alongside what is different, and each to honor, celebrate, and venerate that diversity.

  ShiKahr has changed very little over the years, and, even now, when I walk around its streets, I am easily transported back to my childhood. Our family’s home was in one of the older districts where the houses, huge and somber, set within orderly grounds and gardens, often date back thousands of years. Yet a short walk or journey in an aircar will take you almost to another world. My mother and I could leave the echoing halls of the house of my ancestors, and soon be wandering through the busy and contemporary mercantile district, home to more than a hundred embassies. Everywhere I looked I could see art and architecture from all these worlds—and, most of all, I could see members of many different species, here in my home city. I remember once, sitting with my mother in the winter garden before the Gettenian embassy, counting with her how many different species we might observe within an hour. By the end of the hour, our count reached forty-six. And I remember my mother touching her chest and saying, “Forty-seven,” and then resting her hand against my cheek to say, “Forty-eight.” In such a moment, all the evidence available to me suggested that even a child of half-human heritage might not be out of place on Vulcan.

  I can see now how my mother made the multicultural nature of ShiKahr a cornerstone of my early education. I can see now how quickly and thoroughly she exposed me to different cultures, food, art, theatre. I recall the first time that I saw gagh, wriggling and writhing in the bowl. I imagined how it might feel, sliding down my throat, and was grateful that it was not our custom to eat the flesh of living creatures. (My mother had been vegetarian before even coming to Vulcan.) I remember visits to the mercantile district, where stallholders and street performers vied for our attention. Here was my first encounter with the mysteries of Ankillian shadow puppetry, the stark silhouettes and white spotlights, and the chimes of the bells through which the story was told. I stood mesmerized by the skill of the players in the speed kaltoh tournaments until my mother, gently, had to whisper in my ear that it was time to go. I remember watching the fierce dance and ornate costumes of Jalanian fencers; the feel of the fabrics in the huge covered market—soft Inkarian wool running gently between my fingers, the liquid of Tholian silk. The mingling scents of spices from a hundred worlds: cinnamon, insilit, the distinctive bite of Tellarite grey pepper. Life—at its best—loves and relishes life, in all its forms. We are not lessened by living alongside what it different; we are bettered and enriched.

  But the two places that I loved best were without doubt quintessentially Vulcan. In the center of ShiKahr lies the Surak Memorial Garden: that huge, quiet space at the heart of that great busy city. Many people come here throughout the day, but somehow the place remains still and serene, a place for contemplation. You will see people standing quietly gazing into the reflecting pools; others will be sitting in the little gardens, meditating. My mother and I had a favorite route through, that took us through the maze of red-leaved kilsit trees to the bronze statue of Surak standing before a huge stone Kol-Ut-Shan. I would look at the latter rather than the former (I saw enough frozen faces at home) and find great peace there. Eventually, my mother would draw me away, to sit on the ground nearby.

  “Come and sit with me, Spock,” my mother would say, patting the ground in front of her, and I would sit, cross-legged, looking up at her. She took
her hands within mine and smiled. “Close your eyes.”

  I did not want to close my eyes (I so loved to look at her face), but neither did I want to disobey, so I would do as she asked. So we would sit—mother and son, my small hands within hers, our eyes closed—and she would say, “Breathe, now. Breathe steadily. Follow me.”

  I would follow her lead. I would feel the rise and fall of her hands, and, slowly, my breathing would fall into rhythm with hers. “Listen,” she would say. “Listen to the world around you.”

  I would listen. Hear the gentle lapping of the water in the pools; the soft footsteps of a passer-by; the sigh of someone else trying to find the present moment. My mother was, of course, teaching me some early principles of meditation, how to find clarity of mind and focus—and I was not much older before I realized that the days that we came here were days the weight of my father’s expectation seemed particularly burdensome, his distance most troubling.

  Sometimes, when even the silent company in the Gardens was too much for us, my mother and I would board a gondola, and travel along the Sirakal Canal. Most visitors to ShiKahr do not go further than a kilometer or two along the canal, and on familiar routes, but we—with our expert local knowledge—knew that a little way out, the waterway became almost unvisited. A little over three kilometers out along the canal, one comes to a quiet mooring point, and here we would stop and come to land. We rarely saw others here: perhaps another, sitting in quiet meditation beneath a fa’tahr tree, and we would always leave them to their peace. We had come here for a particular reason.

  In our past, as is well known, our civilization was violent and brutal. We did not spare each other, and we did not spare the varieties of life around us. We hunted, not only for food, but for pleasure. A curious phenomenon, stemming so obviously from such irrational need for mastery and fear of the extinction of one’s self that one is almost surprised that such individuals make such obvious displays of vulnerability and fearfulness. But such are the behaviors of those who struggle through life with undisciplined thoughts and unexamined minds. The whole bent of Vulcan civilization and philosophy has been to bring such harmful impulses under control. But before this was achieved, there was great loss of life—and loss of species.