Posted by Kim on December 7, 2015, 10:15am
This article was originally published during FOBETEO 2013, and discusses how to win even if you're guaranteed to lose. It's some real deep life philosophy. With Star Trek.Kobayashi maru and you
There's been something strange about this year. It's been enormously difficult for me in some very unusual ways. Many of the people who are closest to me in my life also went through long and painful trials of their own, and I've received more letters this year from Repository members talking about health problems, financial problems, personal problems, and all other varieties of doom and gloom than ever before.
I don't know what it is about this year, but it's been a hard one.
So I wanted to use this final post in the Festival of Being Excellent To Each Other to share a concept that has recently brought me great strength and comfort in times of panic unlike any other I've been through before. I hope that it brings you some comfort as well.
The "kobayashi maru" test is something that all Star Fleet cadets must take before their graduation. Cadets are told that it is an important test of leadership, and that a great deal is riding on it. A good grade might mean a better rank or being assigned to a better ship upon graduation. What most don't know going in is that it is a test that is always failed.In this test, the young cadet takes the role of captain on a simulated mission wherein a civilian ship full of people has malfunctioned and drifted off course into the neutral zone - a band of space that, if entered, will immediately trigger fighting and potentially all-out war with the race of hostile aliens who live beyond the neutral zone. The cadet must decide whether to watch the ship full of civilians die a certain death, or rescue them at the risk of their own crew and indeed, perhaps also the deaths of many more civilians in a potential future war. Either way, the captain is going to be responsible for someone's death. In many versions of this test, things are programmed to go so wrong that war is started and the civilians are lost no matter what.
And no matter what, for a time afterward, the cadet is treated by their professors as if they failed, and failed badly.
Why do this? Why force people to take a test where there is no right answer?
Because what is truly being tested in the kobayashi maru scenario is the cadet's ability to deal with failure. Do they panic and make rash decisions, or are their risks calculated and their decisions honorable? Afterwards, are they crushed by the failure? Do they wash out of Star fleet? Is their other work affected? Do they obsessively replay the scenario in their heads to punish themselves, or do they analyze and decide what they will learn from it and change in the future?
The kobayashi maru is about recognizing that not all of life is under your control. Ships will explode. Communications will break down. Decisions will be made based on available information that later turns out to be dangerously incomplete. Friends might be lost. The real question is, regardless of what resulted, can you be proud of your own actions? If you stood up for what you thought was right, it gets easier to look at a failure and take strength from it.
This is a lesson that is important to every single one of us living on this earth (and beyond,) whether we are training to become Star Fleet captains or just a member of a RP group.
Keeping a clear head and doing the right thing under fire - even if that fire is the pain of someone calling you names or not appreciating your nice gestures - is an enormously difficult skill that needs to be practiced. But when "mastered," it can change your life. It can let you look back without regrets even when things didn't turn out the way that you wanted. It will let you admit mistakes without admitting defeat. And it shows those around you what kind of person you really are. It's easy to be a good friend when things are good, but just as easy to snap, accuse, deny or not consider someone else's possible view points or motivations when feeling threatened.
(As an aside: In the original Star Trek series, Kirk is said to have been the only person ever to have passed the kobayashi maru test. He did this by hacking into the academy's computers and replacing the simulation with an easier one of his own. Although he is praised for having "redefined the problem," he has also, in a very real way, failed the test of dealing with failure.)
If you find yourself in a kobayashi maru test in your own life, where no matter what you do, eggs are going to be broken, remember that you still have a choice about how to fail, and that that choice matters just as much as anything else that you will do in life. If you are going to lose the external battle, what part of yourself is most important for you to cling to? Gather up your best self, gather up your courage and honor and empathy, and know that you CAN be a good person even in a bad situation.
Be Excellent To Each Other, and be Excellent to the best version of yourself. Even though the festival comes but once a year, its principles hold true every day.
Happy holidays, my friends. May you live long and prosper!
Comments
[NERDY FLAILING you're seriously the coolest]
this is wonderfully written! the kobayashi maru test is something that deeply affected me also, but i could never have worded why as well as you have here. thank you for sharing, i'll be bookmarking and passing this on to others in need of inspiration.
this is wonderfully written! the kobayashi maru test is something that deeply affected me also, but i could never have worded why as well as you have here. thank you for sharing, i'll be bookmarking and passing this on to others in need of inspiration.
I think about the kobayashi maru all the time. It is one of my favorite pieces of life advice.
I like how this article stresses on how one cannot avoid failure, but must find the best ways to handling it. 
Thanks for this.
Thanks for this.
It's a great piece of advice when you've got difficult decisions to make.
This is a beautiful piece. I really wish I had this piece to look to when I was suffering these kinds of tests during my early RP days.
I think everyone in any community needs to take a look at this once, RP or otherwise.
I think everyone in any community needs to take a look at this once, RP or otherwise.
Well said, thank you for this Kim. I kinda needed this!
Kim
December 9, 2015
11:51am